'A/2,.2-3. 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON. N. J. 
 
 Purchased by the 
 
 Mrs. Robert Lenox Kennedy Church History Fund. 
 
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 Section 
 
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THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 

 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/storyofwalloonsaOOgrif 
 
JOHANN PRINTZ 
 
 Governor of New Sweden, 1643-1653 
 
THE STORY OF THE 
 WALLOONS 
 
 AT HOME, IN LANDS OF EXILE 
 AND IN AMERICA 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, A.M., D.D., L.H.D 
 
 Member of the American Historical Association, of the Asiatic and Historical 
 Societies of Japan and Korea, of Literary and Scientific Societies in the 
 Netherlands, and of the Societe d’Histoire de Protestantisme Beige 
 Author of “ Belgium: The Land of Art,” “ The Story of 
 New Netherland,” “ Belgian Fairy Tales,” etc. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 Efje &tber$foe Cambridge 
 1923 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 ®fjc fttoergttie $rc«g 
 
 CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 PRINTED IN THE U.S.A, 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO ALL DESCENDANTS OF THE 
 BELGIC PILGRIM FATHERS 
 OF THE 
 
 MIDDLE STATES 
 
 WHO BY THEIR GIFTS AND GRACES 
 ENRICHED THE AMERICAN COMPOSITE 
 
PREFACE 
 
 There are thousands of books on New York and 
 the Middle States — Distinctive America — but in 
 scarcely one, European or American, except in a 
 few local histories, is more than a passing reference 
 made to the first home-makers of the Empire Com¬ 
 monwealth, and in many none at all. 
 
 Thirty-one years ago, after seeing in Leyden the 
 records relating to Jesse de Forest, I proposed a 
 memorial in honor of him and his fellow refugees 
 for conscience’ sake. He was the potential begin¬ 
 ner of the commonwealth of New York, for he was 
 the moving spirit in a colony of Walloons who 
 were the first builders of homes with families and 
 were tillers of the soil of [Terra] Nova Belgica, or 
 New Belgium. This territory comprised the area 
 of our four Middle States, and was so named when 
 given a civic organization in 1626. 
 
 These first home-makers in Distinctive America 
 
 were high-souled pioneers of the freedom of the 
 
 human spirit and not merely seekers after gain, in 
 
 fish and furs. They were beginners of the social 
 
 life of the Middle States, with interests rooted in 
 
 the soil. I proceed on the principle that men and 
 
 women, homes and families, are the foundations of 
 
 a State, and the Walloons began these in 1624. The 
 
 • • 
 
 Vll 
 
PREFACE 
 
 trading corporation, called the West India Com¬ 
 pany, went out of existence in a few years, but the 
 people remained. 
 
 Beholding on Manhattan numerous memorials 
 of those who came later — and of many who, in a 
 large sense, were foreigners, that never saw Amer¬ 
 ica— while its beginners were ignored, I felt 
 ashamed. Seeing in the archives and in the Wal¬ 
 loon Library of Leyden the wealth of documents 
 and data relating to the first settlers of both New 
 England and of the Middle States, I was still fur¬ 
 ther impressed. In the hospitable university city 
 of that Dutch Republic — from which our fathers 
 borrowed the stripes in our flag and so many of our 
 federal precedents, social customs, and inspiring 
 ideas — I noted the multitudinous records of at 
 least four of the great strains in our national com¬ 
 posite, English, Dutch, Flemish, and Walloon. 
 
 In the company of those free churchmen who 
 first in 1797 were called “Pilgrim Fathers” there 
 were, besides the four nations of the British Isles, 
 four others represented — making a true type of 
 our own mixed people. Before 1873, over five thou¬ 
 sand English-speaking students had been educated 
 in Leyden. Possibly a similar total could be counted 
 up in the other “high schools,” at Utrecht, Franeker, 
 Groningen, Amsterdam, and Delft. 
 
 Besides the city or community archives, I found 
 in the Klog Steeg, across from St. Peter’s Church, 
 in the Walloon Library, an astonishing wealth of 
 
 vm 
 
PREFACE 
 
 records and data concerning these French-speaking 
 exiles, pilgrims and strangers from southern Bel¬ 
 gium; for in the Republic were nearly seventy 
 Walloon churches — usually spoken of as “French,” 
 because they used that noble language. 
 
 Of these records of the neighbors in Leyden of 
 the “Pilgrims” — a name now so honored, yet one 
 which describes with equal accuracy and justice 
 the French-speaking Belgic refugees, called Wal¬ 
 loons (or pilgrims) — I have made good use. Sev¬ 
 eral visits in their old home, the southern provinces 
 of Belgium, Hainault, Luxembourg, Liege, Namur, 
 and Brabant, quickened my interest in the story — 
 virtually untold in America — of these who re¬ 
 garded not money, fame, or comfort, but left all, 
 for “ freedom to worship God.” I visited also most 
 of the cities in Germany to which so many of the 
 Walloons fled, and I hunted up in England several 
 places of worship of these French-speaking Chris¬ 
 tians, besides reading the records of the larger 
 churches of the Dispersion. To these, and to the 
 publications of the Societe d’Histoire de Protestan- 
 tisme Beige, and the Walloonsche Bibliothek of 
 Leyden, and to many correspondents — Dozy, du 
 Rhieu, Vedder, de Boer, Ravenel, Stoudt, and 
 others, besides our American ministers, consuls, 
 and correspondents abroad — I am much indebted. 
 
 Yet even more than by consulting documents, or 
 by reading books, I gladly acknowledge that it was 
 by having lived nine years in Schenectady, amid 
 
 ix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 many descendants of the Walloons, hearing their 
 traditions, reading the records in their family Bibles, 
 seeing and handling many heirlooms and relics of 
 colonial times, especially in the loan exhibition of 
 1880, that my imagination was first quickened, and 
 my desire to know more of these “ beginners of a 
 better time” became a fixed purpose. Documents 
 and printed matter give one the facts, but not the 
 full truth, and one must have a view from within, 
 of history’s “ storied windows, richly dight,” to 
 appreciate the full effects of these people upon our 
 American civilization. 
 
 As I first heard the description of “Old Dorp,” 
 from an habitual traveler in Europe, long before it 
 became either the place of my labors or the Electric 
 City, he pictured the Schenectady of 1867 as “an 
 old Flemish town” — an “eddy in the current of 
 American history.” 
 
 Not only was there a continuous stream of Wal¬ 
 loons or of settlers of Belgic stock into this settle¬ 
 ment on the Binne Kill of the Mohawk River, 
 from 1661 to 1700 and later, but no fewer than 
 three and possibly four of my predecessors in the 
 pulpit bore Walloon names, or had Belgic blood in 
 their veins. In this town and congregation was 
 reared and thence went forth Dr. Charles Vedder, 
 who, for nearly a half-century, was pastor of the 
 Church of the Huguenots of Charleston, South 
 Carolina, and whose friendship I enjoyed for many 
 years. In Boston, I met Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
 
 x 
 
PREFACE 
 
 who told me of his ancestor who was a deacon in 
 the same church. 
 
 In my journey through life, in many countries 
 and cities, I have had pleasant comrades, school¬ 
 mates, friends, and acquaintances, whose names, 
 in the perspective of memory, have revealed the 
 fact that they were of either Belgic Walloon or 
 French Huguenot descent. Yet, throughout this 
 book, I have tried to avoid linguistic pitfalls, and 
 have made no statements of fact based alone on the 
 verbal analogy of a name. 
 
 I have not attempted a history of the French 
 Huguenots in America, but a sketch of the Belgic 
 Walloons. Nor, with the awful example of some 
 historians before me, have I lost the soul of the 
 story in a mass of antiquarian details. Without 
 any special interest in individual genealogies, but 
 with the purpose of knowing who and whence the 
 American people were and are, have I pursued my 
 search and inquiries. 
 
 It is, then, out of the heart, as well as from read¬ 
 ing and research — believing that sympathy is the 
 key to interpretation — as an American who feels 
 grateful indebtedness to all who helped in the mak¬ 
 ing of the world’s greatest nation and possibly hu¬ 
 manity’s highest hope, and in the belief that no 
 sectional or sectarian history of the United States 
 can fully or fairly tell our country’s story, that 
 this sketch of the pioneers — Belgic Walloons and 
 French Huguenots, who made so rich a contribu- 
 
 xi 
 
✓ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 tion to our national treasury of inheritances — is 
 set forth. 
 
 As in the case of the Pilgrim Fathers, who broke 
 the yoke of Norman feudalism and separated 
 Church and State, yet who held the same faith and 
 language, but whose story was occulted by the 
 later and larger immigration of the Puritans, so 
 with the Walloons. They were Huguenots in faith, 
 their native speech was French, and a large part of 
 Belgic Land, long after the Walloon emigration to 
 America, was annexed to France. Hence, in the 
 greater influx, not only of the Dutch and Flemings, 
 but of the French Huguenots in 1690, the story of 
 the Walloons was forgotten. In fame, the one, the 
 Huguenot, increased; while the other, the Walloon, 
 decreased, almost to oblivion. 
 
 Yet it may be that art will yet glorify, the pen 
 record, the chisel create, the burin limn, and the 
 inscribed tablet tell, in forms of beauty, of these 
 old facts and truths herein set forth. Politics, gov¬ 
 ernments, rulers, and maps change; but family life, 
 the basis and standard of civilization, perdures, and 
 these people were the makers of homes. The date 
 1924 may be even more appropriate than 1926 for 
 our Tercentenary and subsequent celebrations. In 
 either or both, it may be well to quote Schiller’s 
 line, “Respect him, for he is a Walloon,” and to 
 recall that French was the initial speech in the 
 homes of New York, that its colonial laws and 
 
 scores of church records were kept or published in 
 
 • • 
 
 Xll 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 this language also, during two generations; and, 
 above all, that the motto of the Walloons was 
 Nisi Dominus Frustra. 
 
 W. E. G. 
 
 Pulaski, New York 
 May io, 1923 
 
I 
 
 
 V 
 
 N 
 
 
 
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED 
 
 Space does not allow full expression of thanks and 
 grateful obligations to the librarians, archivists, 
 diplomatists, and correspondents in Belgium, the 
 Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, 
 France, Switzerland, South America, South Africa, 
 and the United States who have freely given aid; 
 but to the late Professor du Rhieu of Leyden; Dr. J. 
 C. Van Dyke, of New Brunswick, New Jersey; Mr. 
 A. J. F. van Laer, archivist, of Albany; Dr. Louis 
 P. de Boer, of Denver, Colorado; and the Reverend 
 J. Baer Stoudt, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, my 
 acknowledgments of obligation are especially due. 
 
 Philip Schaff: Creeds of Christendom. 3 vols. 
 
 Registres de I'Eglise Reformee Neerlandaise de Frankenthal au 
 Palatinate , 1565-1689. 
 
 Publications of the Society d’Histoire de Protestantisme Beige. 
 
 Books and pamphlets in the Walloonsche Bibliothek in Leyden. 
 
 Various histories of Belgium and the Netherlands — Perrine, 
 van der Linden, van der Essen, Cammaerts, Blok, Putnam, 
 Motley, Hansen, etc. 
 
 Bulletins of the Societe Beige d’Etudes coloniales. 
 
 D. F. Poujol: Histoire et Influence des Eglises Wallonnes dans 
 les Pays-Bas. 
 
 Jean Martheilhies: Memoirs of a Protestant (Galley Slave). 
 Translated by Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 La Cloquet: Les Artistes Wallons. Brussels, 1913. 
 
 The works of modern writers on Belgium, native and foreign. 
 
 xv 
 
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED 
 
 J. Winkler: De Nederlandsche Geschlactsnamen. 1885. 
 
 Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek. 5 vols. 
 
 L. A. van Langeraad: Guido de Bray , Zijn Leven en Werken. 
 1884. 
 
 Register of the Dutch Church in Austin Friars, London (Flem¬ 
 ings, Walloons, Netherlanders). 
 
 Thirty Thousand Names of Immigrants. Philadelphia, 1898. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York. 7 vols. 
 
 Colonial History of New York. 
 
 C. Versteeg: The Sea Beggars. 
 
 C. W. Baird: History of the Huguenot Emigration to America. 
 
 H. M. Baird: History of the Rise of the Huguenots. 
 
 L. J. Fosdick: The French Blood in America. 
 
 F. J. Zwierlein: Religion in New Nether land (1623-1664). Uni¬ 
 versity of Louvain, 1910. 
 
 J. F. Jameson: Narratives of New Netherland. 
 
 J. W. de Forest: The de Forests of Avesnes. 
 
 Mrs. R. W. de Forest: A Walloon Family in America. 2 vols. 
 
 F. V. Goethals: Dictionnaire genealogique et heraldique des 
 families nobles du royaume de Belgique. Vols. i-iv. Bruxelles, 
 1849-52. 
 
 Publications of the Huguenot Societies in England and the 
 United States. 
 
 E. T. and C. Corwin: Manual of the Reformed Church in Amer¬ 
 ica. Five editions. 
 
 Various local histories, commemorative discourses, etc., of 
 Schenectady, Albany, Staten Island, New Paltz, New Rochelle, 
 Long Island, and of towns and cities in the British Isles. 
 
 Sermons, pamphlets, genealogies, memorial publications, mem¬ 
 oirs, biographies, programmes used at commemorative celebra¬ 
 tions of Huguenot Walloon churches, in Europe and America. 
 
 The authorities used for Belgium: The Land of Art, The Story 
 of New Netherland , and Why Americans should Visit Belgium 
 (1922). 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Beginners of the Middle States i 
 
 II. Who were the Walloons? 8 
 
 III. How the Nations of Europe were 
 
 FORMED 17 
 
 IV. How Asia enriched Europe 28 
 
 V. The Glorious Burgundian Era 35 
 
 VI. In the Time of Charles V 42 
 
 VII. The Deathless Book 51 
 
 VIII. Where and When began the Reforma¬ 
 tion? 59 
 
 IX. The Walloon Hero: Guido de Bray 72 
 
 X. The Church under the Cross 87 
 
 XI. In the Lands of Exile ioi 
 
 XII. The Walloons enrich Sweden iio 
 
 XIII. The Floating Purgatory 119 
 
 XIV. The Economic Creators of Europe 124 
 
 XV. Jesse de Forest and the Ship New Neth- 
 
 ERLAND 134 
 
 XVI. Making the Wilderness bloom 15i 
 
 XVII. Governor Peter Minuit 163 
 
 XVIII. Secretary Isaac de Rasieres 176 
 
 XIX. Food for the Soul 183 
 
 xvii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XX. Rich Farms on Manhattan 192 
 
 XXL The Island of the States 199 
 
 XXII. The American Palatinate 210 
 
 XXIII. The English Conquest 222 
 
 XXIV. Who was Jacob Leisler? 236 
 
 XXV. Walloons become Frenchmen 247 
 
 XXVI. Greater Walloonia 253 
 
 XXVII. The American Walloon Domines 258 
 
 XXVIII. Names in Transformation 266 
 
 XXIX. Life’s Journey among the Walloons 273 
 The Framework of Time 281 
 
 Index 287 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Johann Printz, Governor of New Sweden, 1643- 
 
 1653 Frontispiece 
 
 From an original portrait painted from life. Photograph by 
 kindness of Governor W. C. Sproul of Pennsylvania 
 
 The Great Monument of the (Calvinistic) 
 
 Reformation at Geneva (1918) 60 
 
 Allegory representing the Coming of the 
 
 Prince of Orange 96 
 
 From an engraving of 1572 
 
 A Galley 120 
 
 From an old French print in the U.S. Navy archives, 
 Washington 
 
 Tablet on the Law School of New York Univer¬ 
 sity in Honor of the Dutch and Walloon 
 Teachers in Nova Belgica, or New Nether- 
 land 184 
 
 Statue of Jacob Leisler at New Rochelle, N.Y. 236 
 
 The Walloon Church in Amsterdam 248 
 
 From an old Dutch print 
 
 Some Walloon Coats of Arms 266 
 
 From the Belgian Nobiliares (noble and aristocratic fami¬ 
 lies) in the New York Public Library 
 
\ 
 
THE STORY OF THE 
 WALLOONS 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BEGINNERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 
 
 The first permanent settlers who, in any number, 
 came with wives and children to make homes and to 
 till the soil in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
 and Delaware were Walloons, or French-speaking 
 people, from the Belgic Netherlands. 
 
 Who were they, and why did they come? 
 
 Few people from northern Europe, three hundred 
 years ago, wanted to go and live in America, when it 
 was a howling wilderness full of savage beasts and 
 men. A great, wide, stormy ocean had first to be 
 crossed, and many who made the attempt died on 
 the way or were massacred when on land. In most 
 cases, colonization meant starvation. That was the 
 reason, most probably, why in 1620 the captain of 
 the Speedwell, which contained by far the better 
 company of the Plymouth settlers, made a pretext 
 of leaks and turned back; for the store of provisions 
 was on the Mayflower. By most people in Europe 
 the Atlantic had long been considered a Sea of Dark¬ 
 ness, and North America the Land of Wild Men. It 
 
 1 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 was only the West Indies, or South America, where 
 the soil was rich and food plenty, that attracted col¬ 
 onists; but there dwelt the Spaniard, who perse¬ 
 cuted. Between the Inquisition and the cannibals 
 there was little choice. 
 
 So it was that before men would come with fami¬ 
 lies to what is now the best of all countries, they had 
 to be pushed or driven out from their home lands, 
 like fledglings from the nest. Cruel kings or church 
 rulers must force them to leave their own towns and 
 cities, houses and gardens, before they could think of 
 exile. With most of the first pioneers, it was a choice 
 between prison and torture, being burned alive, or 
 having their heads chopped off. 
 
 In distant America were red hunters with toma¬ 
 hawks and scalping knives, who might treat stran¬ 
 gers as wild game. Such Americans as then lived 
 here were as ready to roast men alive as were the 
 kings, bishops, and judges of the Europe of that day 
 to send innocent people to the axe, the sword, and the 
 flames. Nor were these benighted red Americans so 
 much to blame, seeing that most white men of that 
 day enticed or hunted the natives with bloodhounds, 
 and made slaves of them. What real difference, then, 
 except in name, between “heathen” and “Chris¬ 
 tians”? 
 
 Their Most Christian Majesties were often worse 
 than Turks or heathen in treating even their own 
 subjects. That is the reason why the brave Nether- 
 landers, called Beggars of the Sea — many of whom 
 
 2 
 
BEGINNERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 
 
 were Walloons — wore a silver crescent, or half 
 moon, with the motto “Better Turk than Pope.” 
 Henry Hudson in a ship named from the Beggars* 
 badge and under the seven-red-and-white-striped 
 flag of the Dutch Republic, entered the rivers Dela¬ 
 ware and Hudson, between which are the four Mid¬ 
 dle States of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
 and Delaware, constituting Distinctive America. 
 Its first geographical name was New Netherland. 
 Its first official name was [Terra] Nova Belgica, or 
 New Belgium — a term that occurs in ancient Latin, 
 as well as in 1830, when Belgium became an inde¬ 
 pendent state. 
 
 Some of us rightly call this region of the four Mid¬ 
 dle States, Distinctive America; because while from 
 the first it was more like Europe than any other part 
 of the United States, it was very different also. 
 Other colonies followed Old World ideas, denied free¬ 
 dom of conscience and kept Church and State united; 
 but religion was free in this central region. It was 
 less like England or France, but more like the Re¬ 
 public of the United Netherlands, where any one 
 could worship God in the way he wished. 
 
 The people of the Middle States were not from 
 one state or country as were those from the British 
 Isles who made New England. Before the Revolu¬ 
 tion, they numbered no fewer than fourteen distinct 
 nationalities differing in language and forms of reli¬ 
 gion ; but these four colonies formed the first group 
 that was united under one government and in which 
 
 3 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 there was toleration for all. When later Governor 
 Stuyvesant played the bigot, he was at once rebuked 
 by the home Government. It was in this Middle Re¬ 
 gion that the first idea of a union of all the colonies 
 arose; and here was the home of the First Colonial 
 and the First Continental Congress, the Declara¬ 
 tion of Independence, the national flag, the Consti¬ 
 tution, and most of the ideas and influences that 
 tended to bind the separated colonies in federal 
 union under one government, infused with one soul 
 as a nation. 
 
 There never was any such country or place called 
 New Netherlands. In naming geographically, in 
 1614, the new American province of the Dutch Repub¬ 
 lic, New Netherland, and politically [Terra] Nova 
 Belgica, the Dutch West India Company followed 
 the example set by one of the best men who ever 
 lived. This was William the Silent, called the Father 
 of his Country, and the ancestor of Queen Wilhel- 
 mina. When his baby daughter was born, he had her 
 christened at Antwerp and named Catherine Bel¬ 
 gica. William hoped that all the seventeen prov¬ 
 inces of the Netherlands would be united in one re¬ 
 public and under one flag, with liberal ideas as to 
 religion, that is, freedom of conscience guaranteed 
 to all; and he very nearly succeeded in realizing it. 
 The Dutch federal flag, from which we borrowed the 
 stripes in ours, consisted of seven alternate bands of 
 color, white and red, representing commonwealths, 
 not individual rulers. 
 
 4 
 
BEGINNERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 
 
 William wanted seventeen stripes, as earnestly as 
 our forefathers in 1775, led by General Washing¬ 
 ton and Dr. Benjamin Franklin, hoped for fourteen 
 stripes in ours, by having Canada in the federation, 
 for this province had been represented in the first 
 Continental Congress of 1774. In America, Puritan 
 New England opposed toleration in Canada. We 
 need not wonder at this, when politics and religion 
 were considered as one and inseparable. In Ghent, 
 fanatics on one side were just as bad as those on the 
 other, for the Calvinists burnt monks and priests 
 alive. 
 
 In the Union of Arras (now in France), in 1578, 
 the Belgic Netherlands separated from the Dutch. 
 Then the flag of the Republic had only seven stripes. 
 Yet often the republican battle flag consisted of 
 twenty-one stripes, that is, the red, white, and blue 
 seven times repeated. 
 
 It is both fact and truth to assert that those 
 who most persecuted men for their conscience’ sake 
 helped powerfully to effect the colonization of Amer¬ 
 ica. This is confessed even in memorials to the perse¬ 
 cutors. For example, some English people put up a 
 stained glass window in the church at Stratford-on- 
 Avon, in which Shakespeare is buried. The inscrip¬ 
 tion says that Archbishop Laud “ promoted the col¬ 
 onization of America.” But how? In the same way 
 that Philip II, the King of France, and the Pope did. 
 All were men of their time. They did not think as 
 rulers do now, and they all supposed they were doing 
 
 5 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 right. It had been the old way and they followed in 
 the footsteps of their fathers, fearing the wrath of 
 Heaven if they departed from it. Unconsciously 
 they were as sons of Jacob and brothers of Joseph. 
 
 Laud thought that people who did not think as he 
 did should be robbed, imprisoned, put to death, or 
 driven out of the country. So did Louis XIV, the 
 King of France. So also did the Queens, Mary and 
 Elizabeth. Exiled from their home land, English 
 fathers and mothers, as early as 1555, called them¬ 
 selves pilgrims and gave to more than one child the 
 name Peregrine, as was later done on the May¬ 
 flower. King James I and his feudal bishops drove 
 out the thinking people, thousands of whom took 
 refuge first in the Dutch Republic, where “religion 
 was free for all men” — later enriching America 
 at the expense of England. Thus the monarchs of 
 Spain, France, and England “promoted the coloni¬ 
 zation of America.” 
 
 It is all so very different now — for we live in a 
 new world of thought — that we must ask, “Why 
 were these rulers of Church and State so cruel 
 and bitter against innocent people, who had done 
 no wrong, neither committed any crime?” Were 
 those “commanded to leave the realm” bandits or 
 murderers? 
 
 These rulers themselves would be thought such if 
 they lived to-day, but three hundred years ago, the 
 ideas and customs of both “Christians” and “hea¬ 
 then,” in Asia and in Europe, were very much alike 
 
 6 
 
BEGINNERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 
 
 in one respect. The gentlemen who sat on thrones 
 and wore crowns, and those in miters and lawn 
 sleeves, were pretty much of one mind in their pol¬ 
 icy. If any man held a different opinion from theirs 
 he was considered an outcast and worthy of death. 
 Non-conformity was a crime. Was it China, or In¬ 
 dia, or Europe, that was in a state of arrested devel¬ 
 opment? Probably Marco Polo thought the latter. 
 
 Because it is all changed now in most countries of 
 the world, we are not to abuse thoughtlessly the men 
 of different minds in old days, or judge them by the 
 moral standards of to-day. It is only by putting out 
 of our minds the present ruling ideas and entering 
 into “ the spirit of the age ” in which they lived, that 
 we can do them justice, even while grateful for those 
 who, seeing beyond the immediate troubles, were 
 faithful to their intelligent convictions. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 WHO WERE THE WALLOONS? 
 
 On the islands of the Manhattan archipelago, and at 
 places along the Hudson and Delaware rivers, the 
 Walloons made their settlements, beginning in 1624. 
 As pious and high-souled as the Pilgrims, they had 
 on board their vessel a church officer, who led song 
 and worship. In later years, thousands more of these 
 Belgian people came over in the ships. Probably 
 two thirds of the inhabitants of New Netherland, 
 called “Dutch,” were from the southern or Belgic 
 part of the seventeen provinces — Flemings who 
 spoke Dutch and Walloons whose speech was 
 French; but all held the Reformed Christian faith 
 based on the deathless literature found in the Bible. 
 In religion, the “Walloons” from Belgium and the 
 “Huguenots” from France were one, as were the 
 Pilgrims and Puritans. 
 
 As to the territory of the Walloons, in the politi¬ 
 cal shiftings of feudal and later times, part of it was 
 sometimes in France, again in Belgium, and still 
 again in France. This may explain why the spiritual 
 life of Belgic Walloons and French Huguenots was 
 much the same. 
 
 In the case of both the Pilgrim and the Walloon, 
 the story of the smaller company was first occulted 
 and then lost in that of the larger body. Myriads 
 
 8 
 
WHO WERE THE WALLOONS? 
 
 can be seen more easily than hundreds — the forest 
 sooner than the trees — but now the story of both 
 has been recovered for American history, while in 
 Holland the Walloon story never was lost. In 1668, 
 by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, confirmed in 1713 
 by that of Utrecht, a large part of Walloon Belgium, 
 or the “Spanish Netherlands,” was ceded to France, 
 and from this district, now in the D6partement du 
 Nord, came a large part of the Huguenot emigration, 
 which after this date helped to people America. 
 
 In the new American province of the Dutch Re¬ 
 public, the hardy male pioneers who fished in the 
 waters, or with the Indians bartered trinkets for 
 furs, guns, and textiles, or explored the land, during 
 the fifteen years from Henry Hudson’s time, or from 
 1609 until 1624, were almost wholly Dutch. They 
 had no homes, for they were without wives or chil¬ 
 dren, nor did they till the soil. They made money 
 and maps, and one, whose name is in Cape May, 
 New Jersey, built a small ship called the Onrust, or 
 Restless. It was a hunter and swift-goer, or, in Dutch, 
 a “yacht.” Some lived in huts over a winter, and 
 even, it may be, that men with wives and children 
 made brief visits, but they did not have homes, or¬ 
 chards, fields, gardens, cattle, poultry, or title to the 
 land. No guaranteed legal land tenure or ownership 
 of the soil was possible until after the West India 
 Company was formed in 1621. 
 
 The Walloons made of the wilderness a new home 
 land. They did not call themselves at first “Wal- 
 
 9 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 loons.” This was the term applied to them when 
 they had lived in a foreign land. It was as with the 
 “Pilgrim Fathers,” who were never so called until 
 the year 1797. A foreigner in Antwerp, the English¬ 
 man Gresham (ancestor of our former Secretary of 
 State) in 1567, first in the English language, spoke 
 of “the Vallons.” 
 
 These people were probably among the descend¬ 
 ants of the Belgae, of whose ancestors Caesar, the Ro¬ 
 man general, tells us. He declared that they were 
 the bravest of all the tribes. They were proud of be¬ 
 ing one of the oldest people in northern Europe. On 
 the first official seal used on New York soil, we read 
 Sigillum Novi Belgii, and [Terra] Nova Belgica was 
 the name of the new land. Both Batavia (meaning 
 better land), and Belgica, or Belgium, were used 
 much as we use the word “Columbia” for America. 
 
 The settlement on Manhattan, which means “a 
 place between two rivers,” was called by them, 
 though never officially, New Avesnes or Avennes, 
 the birthplace of their leader, Jesse de Forest. More¬ 
 over, the first language spoken in the homes of 
 Distinctive America, or the Middle Region, was 
 French. We shall tell about the adventures of the 
 Walloons of America in this book; but first we shall 
 look at them on their native soil and learn of their 
 flight and fortunes in several lands, and how they 
 got across the Atlantic. Environment dictated their 
 development through the centuries, but heredity 
 showed what was in them to do. Their history is 
 
 10 
 
WHO WERE THE WALLOONS? 
 
 well worthy of study. From the Walloons in the 
 Belgium of to-day, these early makers of New York 
 differed chiefly in matters of conscience. 
 
 Take the map of Belgium and draw a line from 
 west to east, through Brussels. South of this are 
 the provinces of Hainault, Namur, Luxembourg, 
 and Liege. These are called the Walloon provinces, 
 or, of late, “Walloonia”; for now the people and the 
 government have accepted and are proud of the 
 name, just as we are of that of the once unknown 
 “Pilgrim Fathers.” The name Walloon, which has 
 nothing to do with the Waal (inner or turbulent) 
 River, or the imaginary single province of “Wal¬ 
 loonia,” helps us to distinguish these people from 
 the Flemings, of the northern half of Belgium — the 
 country which has two races, two languages, two 
 centers of industry, two landscapes, and two varie¬ 
 ties of religion. To-day the old Walloon district in¬ 
 cludes also the Departement du Nord in France, 
 which was once part of Belgium. 
 
 Yet from the first beginnings of language, the 
 root-word wal , with its variations in spelling and 
 pronunciation, meant alien, stranger, foreigner. 
 The Romans called all the northern people by such a 
 word (Wealsh or Welsh), even as the Germans so 
 speak of the Italians to this day. In Belgic Land, 
 while “the Franks settled in the North, the Roman¬ 
 ized Celts or ‘ Walas ’ occupied the South.” Later on 
 when church dioceses were formed, men spoke of the 
 “Walas” and “Dietschen” — Celts and Germans. 
 
 ii 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 When we look further into the use of this root word, 
 we find it not only in Switzerland in the canton of 
 Wallis, in the Netherlands in the island of Wal- 
 cheren, in Britain applied to the Cymric Land of 
 Wales, but we also discern it in hundreds of English 
 and American place-names, such as Walton, Wal¬ 
 lingford, etc. In Dutch, to say of a man “he speaks 
 Waalsch” (Welsh) means he is a Walloon, or he 
 speaks French. 
 
 This division of Belgium means more, also, than 
 in race and speech. The Flemings are farmers, the 
 Walloons are mechanics. North Belgium is agricul¬ 
 tural, South Belgium is industrial. At Louvain, the 
 traveler bids good-bye, once for all, to everything 
 Flemish. The town halls and cathedrals, that is, 
 civic and religious architecture, are not in the same 
 style. The scenery is different. Flanders is flat; the 
 Walloon country is rich in hills. To live in Louvain 
 and in Ghent is much like dwelling in two worlds. 
 The peasant from Hainault when in Flanders is in a 
 foreign land, nor can he feel at home. Brussels, the 
 capital in Brabant, is the meeting place of language 
 and race. Into it the riches of north and south are 
 poured. This city is a smaller Paris. 
 
 Yet both Walloons and Flemings are intensely 
 patriotic, for they have been united in one nation for 
 over five hundred years. They have the same kind of 
 money, they follow the same way of living, and are 
 proud of their history. Instead of being ground to 
 powder between the two millstones of France and 
 
 12 
 
WHO WERE THE WALLOONS*? 
 
 Germany, the Belgians have never been wholly 
 crushed. 
 
 How much of the Teutonic strain is mixed in that 
 of the Walloon is a question probably never to be 
 settled. Many foolish notions persist and theories 
 have been spun from the exaggeration of the orig¬ 
 inal race element or subsequent admixture in the 
 Walloon. The astonishing thing is that these two 
 races and languages have remained intractable to all 
 attempts to mix them; yet in friendliness and even 
 in patriotism the Belgians have ever been one, thus 
 furnishing a noble example to mankind in general 
 and a rebuke to all who hate “ foreigners/' 
 
 Nine tenths of the real or imaginary divisions or 
 estrangements noticeable in their history have had 
 little or nothing to do with language, nor were they 
 racial, but almost wholly economic. In fact, as a 
 rule, foreigners exaggerate the ethnic and linguistic 
 divisions, while native historians, like Perrine, show 
 us the reality. The last signal attempt to separate 
 Walloon and Fleming — to rend a nation asunder — 
 by an appeal to race and language, was made by the 
 invaders of 1914. Like all previous similar efforts to 
 destroy Belgium, it failed miserably. There was an 
 eternal Belgium long before 1830. 
 
 The most interesting part of Belgic Land to the 
 tourist is in the North, the most beautiful scenery in 
 the South. For nearly a thousand years, there have 
 been three industrial centers — of textiles, of metal 
 working, and of trade; that is, Flanders, Walloon 
 
 13 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Land, and Antwerp — each excelling in its special 
 products. 
 
 Why did so many of the southern Belgians, from 
 1567, leave their beautiful land? Why, but for con¬ 
 science’ sake and loyalty to the Highest! In Eng¬ 
 land, they were treated rather roughly by the ap¬ 
 prentices and workmen, who were jealous of their 
 superior abilities in craftsmanship. Borrowing the 
 word from the Dutch, these Englishmen called them 
 “foreigners” — “wall” meaning alien and “oon” 
 meaning one, that is, a foreign fellow, a stranger. 
 They were twitted with leaving their country and 
 not fighting hard to defend it. Yet an American en¬ 
 gineer and soldier — one of the million or more de¬ 
 scendants of the first Walloons in New York— has 
 given his judgment that the Belgic or Walloon region 
 is not militarily defensible. 
 
 Belgium has no great natural frontiers. Her ter¬ 
 ritory is open on all sides. Nevertheless, for half a 
 millennium the dragons, whether French, or Ger¬ 
 man, or Dutch, have failed to swallow her. Every 
 one of the numerous wars and invasions, even down 
 to 1914, has confirmed the American engineer’s opin¬ 
 ion. After millions spent on General Brialmont’s 
 system of fortifications, the Germans took both the 
 Li£ge and Antwerp forts. Of all Belgium, the Wal¬ 
 loon portion has usually been the most devastated. 
 
 The first martyrs, in the new era of Bible study, 
 two young monks, Esch and Voes, were burned 
 alive, in the public square in Brussels. The Wal- 
 
 14 
 
WHO WERE THE WALLOONS? 
 
 loons are very quick to catch a new idea, and hence 
 they promptly welcomed the Reformation; but 
 when death was pronounced against them, by the 
 royal Spaniard in the Escurial, the order to change 
 their ways of thinking came so suddenly that they 
 had neither the time nor the power of defense. 
 Against the large and finely disciplined and equipped 
 army of Alva that in 1567 invaded their country, 
 they were helpless. 
 
 The men of the new mind wanted to read the 
 Book of books. Philip II and his bishops said: “ No, 
 you cannot, you must think as we think, worship as 
 we worship, and read only what we permit you; or 
 we shall drive you out of the land, or kill you.” 
 Hence the flight and dispersion of the Huguenot Wal¬ 
 loons in all the countries of the Reformation, from 
 Sweden to Russia, in South Africa and South Amer¬ 
 ica, and in the Dutch and English colonies of North 
 America. 
 
 In our day and country, people can think and read 
 what books they please, and worship God in their 
 own way, too, if they obey the law. But three cen¬ 
 turies ago, it was the general custom with most 
 governments, heathen, Confucian, Mahometan, and 
 Christian, to imprison, hang, burn, or behead people 
 of the other party. So long as the lust of power, 
 place, and pelf rules in men’s minds, this will be so; 
 for men hide their animal passions under the cloak 
 of religion. History shows that in any age and coun¬ 
 try, all over the world, those who claim to be vicars 
 
 15 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 of God, and have the power, will persecute. History 
 also shows that in most cases “orthodoxy” means 
 success and “heresy” defeat. Grant the first pre¬ 
 mise, of monopoly of authority from Heaven or God, 
 given to persons, parties, or corporations, and all 
 their claims logically follow, whether in Asia, Europe, 
 or Africa. 
 
 Philip II of Spain, who had terrible quarrels also 
 with the Pope, thought he was serving God when he 
 sent the Duke of Alva to behead nobles, whether of 
 the old or the new form of the faith, to hang inno¬ 
 cent people, to confiscate their property, and to de¬ 
 populate and desolate the land. At his proceedings 
 we shalljook, while we tell the story of the Walloons. 
 If we know what happened in the past and learn the 
 story of human progress, we shall be all the more 
 thankful for the country and the times in which we 
 live. We shall understand all the better our own his¬ 
 tory and government, for even nations and the whole 
 human race are pilgrims ever marching onward 
 and, though with many a setback, moving forward. 
 “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.” That 
 is the picture of human progress. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HOW THE NATIONS OF EUROPE WERE FORMED 
 
 Europe is the magic mirror whose history reveals to 
 us our own national story. The struggle for liberty 
 in America was but that of adjournment from the 
 old to the new continent. Even the American Revo¬ 
 lution, rightly interpreted, is but one of the glories 
 of English history. 
 
 In our age of the world, when we speak of French¬ 
 men, Germans, Italians, British, Dutch, or Belgians, 
 we think also of certain countries on the map, with 
 boundaries, with the people in each as speaking a 
 particular language, and usually one language only. 
 Besides this, in a general way we all picture to our¬ 
 selves the kind of a man he is whom we call a Brit¬ 
 isher, a Dane, a Swede, a Frenchman, an Italian, or 
 a Russian. 
 
 In a similar way even in our country we think of 
 New England and Yankees, of the South and South¬ 
 erners, of the Middle West, the Far West, and the 
 Pacific slope, and the people in these sections. The 
 United States being as large as Europe, we divide 
 also the time. So we have for our railroads Eastern, 
 Central, Western, and Mountain time. We are vo¬ 
 ciferous in shouting “ Progress” as a battle-cry, yet 
 this idea of.progress is a modern one. Those who 
 
 17 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 three or four centuries ago urged it were under ban 
 as heretics and malefactors. 
 
 A thousand years ago even the idea of nationality 
 was but faintly apprehended in Europe, and we may 
 say much the same of the different literatures and 
 boundaries. Nor were most of the words which now 
 describe the great nations and peoples in use, or even 
 conceived of. Most persons never went more than a 
 few miles from home. It was only in war time, or for 
 commerce, that a few Europeans moved. In the Far 
 East, however, travelers had the magnetic compass 
 and used it on land and sea. Sailors ploughed the 
 ocean and caravans traversed mountains and plains. 
 What most of our books call “the history of the 
 world’’ refers almost wholly to countries around the 
 Mediterranean — the very name of which exposes 
 the ignorance of ages. 
 
 The inhabitants of middle and northern Europe 
 had been from very early time wandering tribes of 
 savages, or barbarians. The civilized peoples were 
 the Greeks and Romans, who dwelt along the Medi¬ 
 terranean, or Middle-Earth Sea. The Romans, in 
 their course of kingdom, republic, and empire, dur¬ 
 ing twelve hundred years, pushed their way north as 
 far as the Rhine river and in Britain almost to Scot¬ 
 land. In large measure the Roman Empire thrust 
 itself between the tribal emigrations, stopped their 
 wanderings, and, until the fifth Christian century, 
 kept them in check. Then the northern barbarians 
 •—the “Waalsch” — who already composed over 
 
 18 
 
HOW THE NATIONS WERE FORMED 
 
 half of the soldiers and slaves, destroyed the Empire. 
 Thus Rome fell, as much from internal decay as from 
 external attack. 
 
 For several hundred years, until the ninth cen¬ 
 tury, there were hordes, clans, and tribes moving 
 about, fighting, conquering, and settling in new 
 lands and upon other people’s territory, but there 
 were not as yet the states and their boundaries with 
 which we are familiar on the map. 
 
 The man who, after the ruined Roman Empire, 
 tried to unify Europe by restoring order was Char¬ 
 lemagne; that is, Carolus Magnus, or Charles the 
 Great, of Walloon Land. Born in the Belgic village 
 of Herestal, in the year 742, he lived until a.d. 814. 
 His model, the only one he thought possible, was in 
 the past; but the name of the new political structure 
 was the Holy Roman Empire. For seven centuries 
 onward, the two great forces shaping history were 
 Papal and Imperial, Pope and Emperor, the Church 
 and the Empire. 
 
 To most of the tribes in northern Europe that still 
 worshiped gods, whose names are recalled in the 
 days of the week, Charlemagne was like a hammer. 
 He made of them what were called “Christians,” by 
 first overcoming them in battle and then driving 
 them by thousands, at the point of the spear, into 
 the rivers to be “baptized.” Then, accepting the 
 faith, they were at least churchmen, if not follow¬ 
 ers of Jesus. To accomplish his purpose, he trans¬ 
 planted colonies of them along the North Sea, 
 
 19 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 whither others had fled before his arms, and so were 
 called “fleemings” or Flemings. 
 
 On Christmas Day, a.d. 800, Charlemagne was in 
 Rome, and the Bishop of that city — the Papa or 
 Pope — placed a crown on the warrior’s head. This 
 signified the union of Church and State, the joining 
 of spiritual and temporal power; which meant, in 
 practice, that Christianity could be propagated by 
 force, like Mahometanism. This act and what fol¬ 
 lowed logically from it directly reversed the Found¬ 
 er’s teaching. 
 
 From this time, the sword and battle-axe and the 
 shepherd’s crook, or crozier, went together. “The 
 Holy Roman Empire” influenced European politics 
 for nearly a thousand years. The underlying idea 
 was that the “whole world ” — of which only a small 
 portion was known in Europe — belonged to all who 
 were churchmen, or “Christians.” The “heathen” 
 had no rights which rulers or people called Chris¬ 
 tians were bound to respect. This great religious 
 corporation in Italy compelled kings and emperors 
 to obey its decrees. In spirit, it was as far as possible 
 from what the Founder said, when He declared be¬ 
 fore the Roman governor, “My kingdom is not of 
 this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then 
 would my servants fight.” As to the length of its 
 existence, Charlemagne’s has been well called a 
 “mushroom empire.” Its story was soon told. 
 
 As used in European politics, the idea that Church 
 and State were one has been above all others the 
 
 20 
 
HOW THE NATIONS WERE FORMED 
 
 cause of innumerable wars arid bloodshed. For five 
 or more centuries this dogma, almost unchallenged, 
 except here and there by sects, ruled the European 
 nations in their evolution. It taught that the ruler 
 of a country, or the local magistrate, had a right to 
 lord it over the conscience, and that the State could 
 dictate the religion. From this grew up the motto, 
 when Latin was the common language of the learned 
 and of rulers and documents, cujus regio, ejus religio; 
 that is, whose is the region, his is the religion. He 
 who governed the country could say what people 
 were to think and believe. So in France and Bel¬ 
 gium, “the King's religion" was held to be the only 
 real one, while that based on the Bible was officially 
 dubbed the “Pretended Reformed Religion.” 
 
 Moreover, the king, or governor, could carry out 
 his will by force, fire, and sword, even dealing out 
 death to the men who did their own thinking. Such 
 a system was at the antipodes of what Jesus taught, 
 “My kingdom is not of this world.” 
 
 Rome was thought to be the center of the (flat) 
 earth. Hence all authority must proceed from the 
 city on the Tiber, where the capital of the Roman 
 Empire had been. This was exactly like the Chinese 
 dogma of Whang Ti, which supposed that the Em¬ 
 peror of China was God's vicar and the Chinese na¬ 
 tion was the most civilized in all the earth, and that 
 all authority, spiritual and temporal, must proceed 
 from the capital. Hence the long-continued perse¬ 
 cutions in China, which the great Dutch scholar, 
 
 21 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 de Groot, has revealed to us. Both forms of the; 
 same notion, Chinese and Roman, which invaria¬ 
 bly meant persecution, are now perhaps becoming 
 obsolete, though they are still a menace to ordered 
 freedom. 
 
 Such a system seemed necessary in the days 
 of darkness and ignorance, when only monks and 
 priests could read and write, and when the Church 
 did a mighty work in unifying and instructing the 
 nations. General education was not as yet thought 
 of, and the Bible was unknown to the masses. In our 
 time, with free public schools, such a doctrine is so 
 far out of date that it is only by isolating people from 
 infancy and filling their minds with ideas unknown 
 in the Book of books, that such a monopoly of reli¬ 
 gion can be perpetuated. We shall see what forces 
 broke up this one of the several feudal systems, and 
 brought in the new age which we enjoy. 
 
 When Charles the Great died, in 814, he had no 
 son who was capable of ruling the vast realm; but 
 in the third generation there were three grandsons, 
 who agreed to divide the empire, each taking an 
 equal portion. The ceremonies of partition, with 
 the sacred oaths, sworn to by each of the three 
 princes, were solemnized in a.d. 843, at a place in 
 France called Verdun — the same where, over a 
 thousand years later, the waves of German invasion 
 were rolled back in defeat. 
 
 The scope of this mediaeval compact included 
 even more than geography and politics. From this 
 
 22 
 
HOW THE NATIONS WERE FORMED 
 
 date, the languages, the literatures, the nations, and 
 the modern states began to form and their bounda¬ 
 ries to be fixed. Roughly speaking, the West was 
 France, the East, Germany. The central state, made 
 up of the border lands of western Europe, extended 
 from the English Channel to Italy. It included Bel- 
 gic Land, and was named the Kingdom of Lothair, or 
 Lotharingia. Henceforth, in history, we recognize 
 Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, English¬ 
 men, etc. 
 
 Nor in the category of European nationalities 
 can Belgium — “thegreat little country” — be left 
 out, nor the Belgians be ignored; for no other coun¬ 
 try has survived greater changes and the attempts 
 of many mighty potentates to absorb or destroy 
 her. The short-lived Kingdom of Lothair, formed 
 by the Verdun Compact of a.d. 843, between France 
 and Germany, still lives in Belgium, as the barrier 
 between France and Germany, for the good of civ¬ 
 ilization. 
 
 Even from Roman times nature assisted. The 
 Coal Forest, stretching from east to west across the 
 entire country, broke the invaders’ efforts and en¬ 
 abled Belgic Land to gain an independence she has 
 kept — despite occasional loss of sovereignty — as 
 “the last fragment of the great empire of Lothair.” 
 
 In a large sense, the political movements of hu¬ 
 man society are like the pendulum of a clock. They 
 swing first toward unity and then separation; in the 
 direction of empire and again of self-determination. 
 
 23 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Centralization and independence make up the story 
 of nations equally in Asia and in Europe. 
 
 From the ninth century, European society was 
 formed on a new basis, which was neither Roman 
 nor barbarian, but feudal. Feudalism was as a great 
 school, and most of the nations went through its long 
 discipline. Its moral foundation was the law of con¬ 
 tract, of mutual obligation. 
 
 This system of society, based on land tenure, 
 changed the landscape, giving new edifices, such as 
 the castle, monastery, tithe-barn, with village unity 
 of crafts, and the cathedral, in which all spiritual life 
 centered. The knight and man-at-arms, the monk 
 and friar were the two outstanding types of superior 
 men above the masses. They were looked upon as 
 the models, which fathers and mothers wanted their 
 sons to copy. Although the prelates lorded it over 
 the common people, the Church, in the main, was 
 the nurse of democracy; for any boy could become a 
 monk, a priest, a bishop, or a pope, although in later 
 times the papacy became in the main an Italian 
 monopoly. 
 
 Yet besides the shaping of nations and countries 
 in both their boundaries and their interior constitu¬ 
 tions, through the human hand and brain, we must 
 not forget those influences of nature which are pow¬ 
 erful and continuous. As there are several theories in 
 philosophy and theology as to the genesis or geneal¬ 
 ogy of the human soul — apart from the body — so 
 there are sound and unsound theories as to the orb 
 
 24 . 
 
« HOW THE NATIONS WERE FORMED 
 
 gin, causes, and continuous reason for the existence 
 of Belgium and the two types of humanity within 
 her borders. Cloquet, in strongly arguing, as against 
 Maeterlinck, that the Walloon genius has been richly 
 productive of painters, as well as sculptors and archi¬ 
 tects, tells us that “in the old Italian writings we 
 find the term flamminge Vallone (Flemish-Walloon) 
 which well characterizes the confusion which re¬ 
 sults from mixing indiscriminately the reputation 
 of the two races.’’ 
 
 Lest the body and soul of Belgium be imagined to 
 be but a patchwork, made on the green baize table 
 of European congresses and diplomatists, let us, with 
 Emile Cammaerts, look at the efficiency of unwea¬ 
 ried nature in producing di-ethnic and bi-lingual Bel¬ 
 gium, which is among the oldest of nations. 
 
 During the period from the Roman occupation to 
 the era of the Crusades, one notable change was 
 made in the landscape, which profoundly affected 
 government, language, social development, and both 
 local and international politics. It fixed perma¬ 
 nently the dualism of race and speech. It stereotyped 
 what is most peculiar to bi-lingual and di-ethnic Bel¬ 
 gium. Side by side, but immiscible, are the Walloons 
 and Flemings. 
 
 By a paradox, the long, slow, gradual, almost 
 imperceptible process of removal or deforestation, 
 while it made permanent separation of speech and 
 blood, developed a national consciousness, uniting 
 the two ethnic elements into one people and awaken- 
 
 25 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 ing patriotism. The Charcoal Forest, which the Ro¬ 
 mans never penetrated and around which their roads 
 ran east and west, whether living or eliminated, has 
 determined the history of the Belgians. 
 
 The Latin world rulers divided their northern 
 conquests between the Seine and the Rhine into 
 Belgia Secunda — that is, Lower Belgium, in which 
 was the hill region of the Ardennes and the great 
 Silva Carbonaria, or Charcoal Forest — and Ger¬ 
 mania Inferior. The Roman highroad ran north of 
 the great woods from Cologne to Arras and west¬ 
 ward even to the Seine. The invading Franks settled 
 in the North, the Romanized Celts or “Walas” 
 (Walloons) occupied the South. 
 
 This Charcoal Forest extended all the way over 
 the distance which the great highway traversed. 
 The Romans made use of the iron in the mines and 
 improved the art of smelting the ore, manipulating 
 the metal by using charcoal. Hence the name they 
 gave to the forest, which neither they of old nor, at 
 first, even the Franks penetrated. It served to iso¬ 
 late the Walloons. In the later onslaughts of the 
 Germanic tribes, the natives found shelter and de¬ 
 fense in this wood’s recesses. 
 
 Parallel in both time and space, in Britain the 
 Teutonic tribes drove the natives westward into the 
 Cymric forests and then called them by the same 
 name, Walas, or Welsh; that is, foreigners. Geology 
 and history clasp hands. The same rocks form alike 
 the hills of the Ardennes and the mountains of Wales. 
 
 26 
 
HOW THE NATIONS WERE FORMED 
 
 In time, however, the last waves of Teutonic pa¬ 
 ganism “spent their force along that leafy barrier 
 which saved Christianity and Roman civilization 
 and incidentally gave the Belgian nation its most 
 prominent and interesting character. The singsong 
 of a Walloon sentence may thus suggest the rustling 
 of the leaves and the piping of the early birds, while 
 the more guttural accents of a Flemish name remind 
 us of the war cry of wild hordes and the beating of 
 lances.” 
 
 It was the cutting down of this forest, first on its 
 western and southern sides, while the northern and 
 eastern flanks remained comparatively untouched 
 for centuries, that brought the Walloons into closer 
 intimacy with the Franks. By speech and common 
 intellectual and economic interests, the French and 
 Southern Belgians were thus linked together in the 
 same aims and interests. 
 
 Yet before fire and the axe had erased from the 
 landscape the Coal Forest, the Walloons in the 
 neighborhood of Liege had early in the fifteenth cen¬ 
 tury become famous all over Europe for their skill 
 and varied craftsmanship chiefly in iron, but notably 
 in other metals. This reputation they have never 
 lost, and we shall, in our narrative, see to whom and 
 what Sweden owes her wealth in iron. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 HOW ASIA ENRICHED EUROPE 
 
 In modern electric science, by the use of the alter¬ 
 nating current, men have accomplished great results, 
 while it has revealed wondrous possibilities. In hu¬ 
 man history, also, we discern a stream of mutual 
 benefit flowing from the pendulum-like motions of 
 advance and retreat, as the civilizations of East and 
 West touch each other. Some see only the clash of 
 war, or what are apparently the evil results; others 
 behold beneficent reactions. In its frequent recur¬ 
 rent devastations and re-creations, Belgium’s his¬ 
 tory seems like an alternating current. 
 
 In what we call the Middle Ages there were two 
 great waves of movement and enterprise, both of 
 them notable for their influence on the whole race. 
 The first was westward and the second eastward, and 
 by these both of the two continents and great reli¬ 
 gions powerfully affected each other. These series of 
 events were the rise of Mahomet and the Saracens, 
 as against the Crusades, and the capture of Jerusa¬ 
 lem by the Crusaders. In the campaigns of men 
 fighting under the crescent and the cross, Belgium 
 had a notable part, for like Charlemagne, Godfrey 
 de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem, was from Walloon 
 Land. 
 
 Through these movements, men of different 
 
 28 
 
HOW ASIA ENRICHED EUROPE 
 
 creeds, races, and minds became acquainted with 
 each other and with the world in which they lived. 
 Out of Christian knighthood arose chivalry and ro¬ 
 mantic love between man and woman. Fine man¬ 
 ners became more and more the rule of life, while in 
 the homes of the European peoples, especially at the 
 seaports and in large cities, and in the houses, or¬ 
 chards, and gardens, were new things to eat, to see, 
 to use, to wear, and to enjoy, which had come from 
 the East. Dress, painting, architecture, manners, 
 and methods of business were all affected by this 
 mutual contact of races. To what extent in the do¬ 
 main of external religion there was mutual borrow¬ 
 ing is a question, but it is certain that Buddhism 
 and the Roman form of Christianity made many 
 exchanges. 
 
 These effects are notably discernible in wall paper, 
 faience, carpets, tapestry, and oil painting. The 
 wonderful colors of the Van Eycks, on wood and 
 canvas, were suggested by the Oriental miniature 
 paintings. The passion of the East is decoration, 
 that of the West form. In Belgium, the land of art, 
 the charms of both were blended. Printing, gun¬ 
 powder, porcelain, wind-mills, banks, jewels, pre¬ 
 cious stones, falconry, the mariner's compass, and a 
 host of Asian inventions and luxuries, from the loom, 
 the garden, the orchard, and the farm, enriched 
 Belgic Land. 
 
 The stimulus to commerce and industry was im¬ 
 mense. New trades and products raised the stand- 
 
 29 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 ard of living in both the castles and the humbler 
 dwellings. Commerce created a prosperity that 
 made the Belgic Netherlands the richest part of Eu¬ 
 rope and the envy of kings and nobles. The cloth, 
 the lace, the tapestry, the pictures, both woven and 
 painted, the stories in the Bible and in the classics 
 of Greece and Rome represented on canvas and in 
 textiles, became famous all over Europe and in other 
 lands and on continents afar. 
 
 Hitherto Asia, the Mother Continent, had been 
 much wealthier than Europe, for most of the inven¬ 
 tions, the finer things of life, fruits and flowers, 
 strange birds and animals, articles of food and drink, 
 spices and condiments, luxurious clothing and other 
 products of the loom, with many of the sports, 
 amusements, fairy tales, and legends now common 
 among us, came from India or China. In time, tea, 
 coffee, and the whole line of hot drinks adorned the 
 European table and gave woman her proper place at 
 the head of it. Surprising novelties and a thousand 
 wonders, unknown in Europe before, seemed to 
 make a new world. 
 
 Before the Crusades, these novelties had been for 
 the most part brought overland by caravans. It is 
 very interesting to trace out on the map the old 
 routes of travel. At the ends of this land traffic, in 
 Italy and France, immense wealth was accumulated 
 by the merchants in the great fairs. It was mainly 
 from the money made by this lucrative land com¬ 
 merce with Asia, together with the sale of indul- 
 
 30 
 
HOW ASIA ENRICHED EUROPE 
 
 gences, that those miracles of human genius, the 
 mighty cathedrals of southern and central Europe, 
 were reared. 
 
 Two series of events changed this stream of wealth 
 and abolished the land routes, beginning a new era of 
 trade by sea. The Italian Marco Polo had been to 
 China, and on coming back told of its vast wealth 
 and high state of civilization. By the Chinese mag¬ 
 netic needle, used as the mariner’s compass, men 
 could now sail out of sight of land and into the dis¬ 
 tant seas. What seemed to be the finger of God, di¬ 
 recting them how and where to go, made men bolder 
 and led to the discovery of new routes over the ocean 
 to the rich Indies, Java, China, Korea, and Japan. 
 Undreamed of forms of wealth, like tidal waves, 
 rolled in upon southern Europe. 
 
 Then followed also the unveiling of continents 
 and the discovery of America, which not only meant 
 new riches to Europe, but made even a greater gift 
 to the human imagination. The process so enlarged 
 men’s minds that boundless possibilities loomed. In 
 their wonder they called the new continent the New 
 World. 
 
 Humanity had gained new horizons. The earth 
 seemed made over again. Western Europe learned 
 also about Oriental civilizations and of another 
 “Catholic” Church, which used the Greek instead 
 of the Latin language in worship and had the New 
 Testament in the tongue of the apostles. In the 
 Western Church, discipline and the centralization of 
 
 3i 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 power upheld by force were the characteristics. In 
 the Eastern Church, doctrine and philosophy were 
 the prevailing features. The Latin and the Greek 
 mind worked in contrast. 
 
 Compared to those of the South, the northern 
 countries of Europe were not only colder, but much 
 poorer. Something now happened which made even 
 England and Sweden co-heirs to the immeasurable 
 good fortune which contact with Asia had brought. 
 
 In 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople. Is¬ 
 lam, or the religion of Mahomet, swept even into In¬ 
 dia and China. After this, the overland trade by 
 caravans ceased, because the Turks had closed the 
 passage, so that transit from the Orient to Europe 
 must henceforth be by sea. Between Bagdad and 
 China were high mountains. The Arabs, therefore, 
 made their voyages to the Far East, Java, China, 
 and Korea — as the Arabic geographer Khordadbey 
 records — in ships. We have also the record of the 
 Chinese fleet sailing in 1122 from Ningpo in China 
 to Korea, and directing its course by the magnetic 
 compass. It was during the Middle Ages that Korea 
 was in her high splendor of civilization, while Japan 
 was relatively in anarchy and barbarism. This 
 change in the old trade routes and the caravan 
 business had at first brought fleets of ships and the 
 profits of Oriental commerce to the cities along the 
 Mediterranean Sea, pouring into the lap of Florence, 
 Rome, and the ports of the Italian republics, riches 
 beyond all former dreams; but later, it was the mak- 
 
 32 
 
HOW ASIA ENRICHED EUROPE 
 
 ing of Belgic Land. The cities of Flanders were full 
 of weavers, lace- and tapestry-makers, besides mer¬ 
 chants and bankers from many lands. Later, Ant¬ 
 werp became the chief seaport of all Europe and one 
 of the richest cities in the world, largely because of 
 this shifting to the northward of the trade routes. 
 Even then, without the submarine cable, or radio, 
 the ends of the earth had met. 
 
 The people in flax land, that is, the Walloons, prof¬ 
 ited also; for in the making of lace, tapestry, and 
 linen textiles, flax, one of a thousand gifts of Asia to 
 Europe, was of the first importance. In the spring¬ 
 time the southern provinces seemed to mirror the 
 empyrean, for their area became a vast field of blue 
 flowers. In the autumn, thousands of stacks of 
 stalks, each one filled inside with the glossy silk-like 
 fiber, fed thousands of looms of weavers; or the sil¬ 
 very white strands lay on the pillows at which the 
 lace-makers, male and female, were constantly busy. 
 The strands used in the finest lace, wrought and 
 workable only in cold and darkness, seemed a mirror 
 of the history of Belgic Land — so often the home of 
 sorrows, yet so many times again rising into beauty 
 and glory. 
 
 It was in this era that the Walloons became fixed 
 in those habits of industry, amounting almost to a 
 passion, for which they are proverbial and which no 
 wars or desolations have been able to quench. In all 
 the centuries, these traits have stood them in good 
 stead. In every case, after foreign invasions, the 
 
 33 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 invincible industry of ceaselessly busy men and of 
 their helpmates, the women, have conquered their 
 conquerors. 
 
 Long afterwards, when in America, it was the in¬ 
 herited habits of their descendants, in both love of 
 work and the saving of time, that made the wilder¬ 
 ness so soon to blossom and the soil so quickly to 
 laugh with new flowers and luscious fruits. In the 
 assemblage of those qualities that make the best 
 type of American, not one strain of humanity has 
 excelled the Huguenot Walloon. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE GLORIOUS BURGUNDIAN ERA 
 
 The era of the Dukes of Burgundy (1384-1476), rul¬ 
 ers of the Netherlands, was one of unification, dur¬ 
 ing which the people of the Low Countries attained 
 national consciousness. It was the era also of the 
 rise of the communes and of the growth of cities. 
 
 Leaving out the history of Flanders, or the North, 
 and confining our view chiefly to the South, we note 
 the general commercial prosperity of this era; es¬ 
 pecially since, in the long run, it was industrialism 
 and commerce which, more than any other factors in 
 the case, broke up feudalism — their own particular 
 form of which, the Burgundian nobles fondly hoped 
 would last forever. 
 
 In actual fact, the dukes, counts, and feudal bar¬ 
 ons had made themselves poor in the Crusades, 
 while the merchants and artisans increased in wealth. 
 They bought from the castle lords both land and 
 privileges, which were secured by being written 
 down in charters. The commoners were thus able to 
 have towns and cities, to build walls around them, 
 and to choose their own rulers and soldiers, and so 
 to possess rights which only at their peril the lords 
 of the land might attempt to seize, annul, or dare 
 to trespass upon. In time, there were in the Low 
 
 35 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Countries over two hundred of what were, in effect, 
 city republics. 
 
 Yet during this time, the wealthy Netherlands 
 were coveted by the potentates of Germany and 
 France, whether of petty degree or of grand preten¬ 
 sions, while there were also many bloody battles be¬ 
 tween lords and vassals, between dukes and mechan¬ 
 ics, besides frequent struggles, not racial, but eco¬ 
 nomic, within the borders of Belgic Land. Victory 
 was at times on one side and again on the other. On a 
 field of carnage and corpses, as at Courtrai, in 1302, 
 one could collect hundreds of pairs of golden spurs 
 and suits of armor of French knights. On another, 
 as at Roosebeke, in 1382, there were counted thou¬ 
 sands of pikestaffs and dead men in common clothes. 
 
 The communes or democratic communities arose 
 from men determined to be free, yet their basis was 
 economic, and both the ideals and the experience 
 gained through centuries by certain stable represen¬ 
 tative governments were lacking. For permanent 
 prosperity, the staple article they needed was wool. 
 This product of the sheep was raised chiefly in Eng¬ 
 land, where were millions of lambs, rams, and ewes, 
 but very few weavers, and most of these had come 
 from across the English Channel. Every year the 
 wool fleet left the English seaports to carry over the 
 fleeces and bags of the fiber which, transformed by 
 intelligence, made warmth for the body and beauty 
 to the eye. 
 
 There was no true national consciousness among 
 
 36 - 
 
THE GLORIOUS BURGUNDIAN ERA 
 
 the Netherlanders until the time of the Burgundians, 
 who welded the seventeen provinces into one com¬ 
 monwealth. Besides this, these dukes were in one 
 way the educators of Europe. They introduced re¬ 
 fined manners and improved society in all the courts 
 of Europe. Instead of the nobles spending their 
 time chiefly in jousts, or rough exercises, or hunting 
 the wild boar and deer in the forests — which then 
 covered the land from the Rhine to the ocean — or 
 carousing in their castles, the feudal lords were sum¬ 
 moned to the court to attend upon their overlord, 
 the Duke. They were thus brought near the culti¬ 
 vated ladies, the scholars, the poets and learned 
 men. This was a sensible proceeding and wrought 
 much good, for very few of the mediaeval knights, 
 who in war wore clothes of iron and leather and in 
 peace liked rough outdoor life, could read or write. 
 
 Apart from their own ambition to govern with 
 power and enjoy the wealth of the richest part of Eu¬ 
 rope, the purpose of the Burgundian dukes was to 
 create a state that should be independent of either 
 France or Germany — from which came frequent in¬ 
 vasions, besides constant interferences. Some of the 
 finest monuments in the Belgium of to-day tell of 
 battles with, or victories over, French knights and 
 German armies. Belgic Land has been for ages the 
 cockpit or quarreling ground of the two races, Frank¬ 
 ish and Teutonic, that seem to have chronic dislikes 
 and animosities. Between their undying rivalries, 
 Belgic Land, with a new sense of nationality, was to 
 
 37 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 stand, holding the balance of power, like the gover¬ 
 nor on a pair of scales. To be a “buffer state ” means 
 to be a shock-absorber in a collision, or a cushion in 
 the concussion between two rivals, or the peaceable 
 victim between contending armies. 
 
 To the great scheme of the Dukes of Burgundy, in 
 unifying many fractions of sovereignty, there were 
 two obstacles, the northern industrial cities in 
 Flanders, like Ghent, and the great trading centers 
 like Antwerp. There were also, in the Walloon man¬ 
 ufacturing city of Li&ge, independent and powerful 
 bishops, who ruled as lords of the land. It was 
 of these interior jealousies that King Louis XI of 
 France hoped to make use in attempting to check¬ 
 mate the plan of Belgian unity. In rivalry and op¬ 
 position, Charles the Bold (1433-77) tried to rees¬ 
 tablish the old ninth-century Kingdom of Lothair, 
 making all the border lands of western Europe into 
 one state. 
 
 Most of the Dukes of Burgundy were wise rulers, 
 but in the case of Charles the Bold, or the Bully, we 
 have an example of the kind of rulers feudalism is 
 apt to breed. This despot thought nothing of punish¬ 
 ing a revolt by reducing a town to ashes and then 
 hanging, shooting, or drowning its inhabitants by 
 the thousands. He well deserved his fate when he 
 tried the same game of brutality with the brave 
 Swiss. At Nancy, January 5, 1477, he was slain, and 
 his banners and the trophies picked up on the bat¬ 
 tle-field now hang in the museums of Switzerland, 
 
 , 38 
 
THE GLORIOUS BURGUNDIAN ERA 
 
 while democracy in that mountain land, whose peo¬ 
 ple assisted so largely to build up Pennsylvania, is 
 safe to this day. 
 
 At Bruges, the tourist visits one of the most mag¬ 
 nificent tombs in Europe. It is that of Charles the 
 Bold and of his daughter Mary. In those days, 
 beautiful girls, or even homely and stupid princesses, 
 were pawns in the games of kings, who used lands 
 and peoples as if they were nothing more than dom¬ 
 inoes or pieces on a chessboard. To get a royal or 
 princely girl for a wife, in this style, seems to us only 
 another form of marriage by capture, in African 
 fashion, or the sale of a woman for cows or cowrie 
 shells. Yet this was the time “when knighthood was 
 in flower.’* 
 
 Louis XI was eager and anxious to get the Prin¬ 
 cess Mary of Burgundy, only daughter of Charles 
 the Bold. There was no love in the scheme, but only 
 the gambler’s hope of a winning game. Yet with all 
 his craft and power, he failed miserably. So, to vent 
 his spite and malice, he seized those territories of the 
 dead Duke which lay in France. His excuse was that 
 since Charles had no male heir, this landed property 
 reverted to the French crown. 
 
 Much of this is told in the form of a story by Sir 
 Walter Scott, in the romance of “Quentin Durward,’’ 
 which all should read. Yet even this great novelist 
 makes the mistake of calling the men “Flemings” 
 and making his hero appear to talk Dutch, when 
 everything in the situation and even the speech 
 
 39 . 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 shows that they were Walloons. However, in the 
 older English literature, ‘‘Flanders” usually meant 
 all Belgic Land, and ‘‘the Low Countries” the 
 whole of the seventeen provinces. Even now, 
 “Holland” — the name of but one of the eleven 
 provinces which compose the kingdom — is ap¬ 
 plied by some foreigners to the whole realm of the 
 Netherlands. 
 
 It was towards the end of the Crusades, when the 
 half-civilized Occident touched the more civilized 
 Orient, that commerce and the guilds of craftsmen 
 were developed. The Town Hall and the Bourse, or 
 Exchange, for the merchants, and the walled cities 
 had not yet appeared; but these, along with the 
 guilds or companies of working-men, were to come 
 later. These were portents and signs that feudalism, 
 in both Church and State, which in most countries of 
 Europe lasted five hundred years, or from about the 
 ninth to the fourteenth century, was being broken 
 up and was ready to pass away. 
 
 By the end of the Burgundian era Belgic Land had 
 taken on a notable and attractive feature which dif¬ 
 ferentiates the Netherlands from almost any part of 
 Europe, except where the Walloon speech and gen¬ 
 ius prevail. It had become the home, by excellence, 
 of the bells. In this region, beyond all others, was 
 there literally “music in the air.” 
 
 One flower, especially associated in point of time 
 with the Burgundian era, but now a familiar sight in 
 the eastern part of the United States, is the meadow 
 
 40 
 
THE GLORIOUS BURGUNDIAN ERA 
 
 ornament, which has a yellow disk with white petals. 
 This our Teutonic ancestors named from the sun the 
 day’s eye, or daisy, and Chaucer “the emprise and 
 flower of flowers all.” It may be called the flower of 
 the Walloons. At the marriage of Charles the Bold 
 with Margaret of York, England, a nosegay of these 
 Marguerite daisies was among the most conspicuous 
 of the floral gifts and decorations. , 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 IN THE TIME OF CHARLES V 
 
 One of the surest proofs that the seventeen prov¬ 
 inces were attaining unity is seen in what happened 
 in the year 1477. The poor German prince Maximil¬ 
 ian I, who inaugurated the line that was disgraced 
 by summary execution in Mexico, in our time, was 
 the Emperor then. He married Mary, daughter of 
 Charles the Bold. He wedded her first according to 
 legal, not ritual, church forms; for, in the “Old” 
 Church, marriage is a sacrament. Being in a hurry, 
 too — for she was rich and he needed the money — 
 occupied with much business, and not having much 
 cash on hand for the journey, he was joined to her 
 legally by proxy. This was a common custom in the 
 European marriage market, among mediaeval rulers, 
 as has been shown in “Belgium: The Land of Art.” 
 Later the great Spaniard, the Duke of Alva, served 
 in the same way for his master, the much married 
 Philip II of Spain, when officially espoused to Eliza¬ 
 beth of Valois. 
 
 When, in due season, Maximilian and Mary had 
 been regularly married, with the final public cere¬ 
 monies, the couple made their “joyous entry” into 
 the cities of the Netherlands, and the groom took 
 oath to “support the constitution” by respecting 
 old charters and the new requirements. Thus, by 
 
 42 
 
IN THE TIME OF CHARLES V 
 
 transfer of authority through matrimony, the seven¬ 
 teen provinces came under the rule of the House of 
 Austria. From this time forth, until the French Rev¬ 
 olution, the southern Netherlands were more and 
 more sacrificed to the interests of their masters, 
 whether belonging to the Austrian or the Spanish 
 branch of the Hapsburgs. It became like a game of 
 shuttlecock and battledore; Belgic Land being the 
 ball between the players, Spain and Austria, varied 
 by the interpositions required by Dutch and British 
 statecraft. 
 
 But before the time of the wedding of Mary and 
 Maximilian, which was within fifteen years of the 
 discovery of America, the Netherlanders resolved to 
 be sure of good treatment by the foreigner. They 
 knew that when once they were within his grip, he 
 would squeeze from them, in the form of taxes, all 
 the money he could possibly get, to squander in 
 some one of those interminable wars which were ever 
 likely to spring up. When the men of privilege wore 
 iron clothes, and a sword was part of their costume, 
 settled peace was always an improbability. 
 
 Already the burghers had learned that good gov¬ 
 ernment cost money and must be paid for, yet, also, 
 their motto was “no taxation without consent.” So 
 they waited upon the Princess Mary and demanded 
 that she summon what we might call a parliament 
 of the provinces, that they, and not the alien ruler, 
 should set the limit of taxation. She must grant 
 what was then, considering the ruling ideas of the age 
 
 43 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 in other countries, a constitution, which should limit 
 the ruler’s powers. The document, which she finally 
 signed and which granted much power to her sub¬ 
 jects, was called “The Great Privileged It became 
 a living political force, efficient and active for over a 
 century. It paved the way for the Republic of the 
 United Netherlands, in 1579; the English Common¬ 
 wealth of 1649; and the American Constitution of 
 1787; for mankind, in its action, is governed less by 
 theories than by successful precedents, and every 
 precedent counts, while movement in one country 
 affects the life of another. 
 
 The discovery of America had a vast influence 
 upon the politics, governments, and trade systems 
 of Europe. Among other upheavals and readjust¬ 
 ments, it made Spain the most powerful among the 
 states of Europe, besides relatively projecting west¬ 
 ward England and the other countries facing the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 When in 1500, Charles V, the grandson of Mary 
 and Maximilian, was born in Ghent, the rejoicings 
 of both Flemings and Walloons were great. People 
 went wild with delight. They were happy that now 
 a Burgundian prince was once more their ruler, for it 
 brought back the memories of the great prosperity 
 and brilliant renown of their native land in that era. 
 
 Of this sovereign the world expected much. When 
 he entered cities, as contemporary documents and 
 pictures show, popular joy reached the point of de¬ 
 lirium. Besides being King of Spain and overlord of 
 
 44 
 
IN THE TIME OF CHARLES V 
 
 the rich Netherlands, he became, at the early age 
 of twenty, Emperor of Germany. His opportuni¬ 
 ties measured up to his titles and position. Yet he 
 turned out to be a lover of continual war and of car¬ 
 nal pleasures. He became prematurely old and died 
 a glutton. 
 
 At first, Charles followed out the policy of his Bur¬ 
 gundian predecessors, in attempting to make the 
 Netherlands the dominant state in Europe — thus 
 holding at bay the great powers of France and Ger¬ 
 many, both of which were equally ambitious and 
 aggressive. They were always ready to renew their 
 quarrels, which had already lasted a thousand years, 
 on Belgic soil. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding his vast possessions in the 
 Old and New World, and his enormous resources, 
 Charles failed and finally abdicated the throne in 
 favor of his Spanish-born son, Philip II, who was 
 one of the greatest bigots of all time. Charles died 
 of over eating, in a monastery in Spain. It was under 
 his rule that the great surgeon Vesalius, a Fleming, 
 made a wonderful advance in science and humanity 
 by amputating the limbs of soldiers wounded in 
 battle. 
 
 Despite all his faults, Charles V did much to give 
 form and cohesion to the Netherlands and to in¬ 
 crease the spirit of national unity. One of his creative 
 works was the Raad van State, or Council of State, 
 the supreme court of the land. This institution 
 after many vicissitudes is still in existence. The most 
 
 45 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 imposing modern edifice in Belgium is the Palace of 
 Justice, in Brussels, which is built on the old site of 
 the castle of the counts of Brabant. The American 
 doctrine of judicial supremacy and the Supreme 
 Court of the United States have come to us by direct 
 evolution from this creation of Charles V. 
 
 In the time of Charles V there were two hundred 
 and twelve walled cities in the seventeen provinces, 
 and most of these possessed written charters. Some 
 of these were older than Magna Charta and were 
 published, not in Latin, but in the language of the 
 people, which all could read and understand. There 
 were many defects in the constitution of the Dutch 
 Republic; but our fathers, in 1787, though repudiat¬ 
 ing the Dutch constitution as a whole, profited by 
 history and experience to note these defects and to 
 make improvements; for, as Hamilton wrote, “Ex¬ 
 perience is the oracle of truth.” 
 
 The bringing of new ideas, through what we call 
 the Renaissance, or the New Birth of Learning, 
 which preceded the Reformation, had deeply stirred 
 men’s minds, and given them a new world of 
 thought. In this movement, learned men used not 
 only their eyes, but the pen and the spade. They 
 dug up, copied out, printed, and exhibited the won¬ 
 derful treasures in literature and art of the Hebrews, 
 Greeks, Romans, and Arabs. They found out that 
 there had been and were civilizations greater than 
 their own. 
 
 History is a resurrection. At first, most of the 
 
 46 ’ 
 
IN THE TIME OF CHARLES V 
 
 knowledge of such great ancients as Plato and Aris¬ 
 totle was made known in Europe through Arabic 
 translations. In a large sense, “the glory that was 
 Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome” had been 
 unknown before to mediaeval Europeans. By the 
 multitude they were hardly suspected to have ever 
 existed. The popular stories of the past were fan¬ 
 tastic to the last degree. To discover the originals 
 was as the finding of the continent of America by 
 the men who followed Columbus. 
 
 In the time of Charles V very few people knew 
 what the Bible was, except as the priests told them, 
 or they learned from pictures, statues, tapestry, 
 carvings, and miracle plays. The stories told in the 
 pulpit were more or less funny, and in time the Pas¬ 
 sion Play became a Punch and Judy show — Pon¬ 
 tius Pilate being Punch, and his wife, with the leg¬ 
 endary name of Judith, being Judy. A great many 
 notions and symbols, such as feminine angels with 
 wings, were borrowed from Buddhism. Except 
 priests and monks, the majority of people were 
 totally ignorant of the Bible and its contents, and 
 most of the men at the altar knew very little. 
 
 It was like thirsty souls coming to a living spring 
 of water to read the Greek classics and the New 
 Testament. 
 
 Columbus got his ideas about land lying in the 
 western part of the globe from Plato’s writings, 
 which came to mediaeval Europe through the 
 Arabic. When the Saracens — a word meaning Ori- 
 
 47 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 entals and a general name for Turks and Moslems — 
 captured Constantinople, the Greek scholars fled to 
 western Europe, bringing with them the New Testa¬ 
 ment. Then it was that learned men found out in 
 what the true Church consisted and where lay the 
 seat of authority. They discovered that in the first 
 Christian congregations there were no pope or 
 cardinals, and that bishops were only pastors of 
 churches, or “overseers,” while kings and politicians 
 had nothing to do with the conscience. Yet Chris¬ 
 tianity in the eyes of the State Church was branded 
 as “heresy,” just as was the Reformation later. 
 “Life grows by ‘heresies.’” 
 
 Moreover it was found that anciently, in the days 
 of the apostles, the people elected their own officers. 
 What was most to be feared by kings was the rule of 
 the people, as in the time of Moses, and the early 
 Jewish republics. The ancient literature showed 
 that this was by elders, and that when God gave 
 kings to Israel, He did it in his wrath and He took 
 royalty away in his displeasure; because though 
 called “the Lord’s anointed,” many of the kings 
 were bad rulers and wicked in their lives. Some 
 prelates even objected to translating the Bible into 
 the people’s language, lest men should learn how to 
 swear worse than before. 
 
 It often happens that there are men born into the 
 world who are not blind with the eyes set in their 
 heads, but are utterly obtuse as to what is going on in 
 men’s minds. Charles V was one of the most blinded, 
 
 48 
 
IN THE TIME OF CHARLES V 
 
 partly because his chief business was that of a soldier 
 and therefore he was interested chiefly in war. Yet 
 he knew little and could comprehend less of the 
 great movement of mind that was to create a new 
 world of thought, worship, habits, and customs, and 
 to renew society. Men had got hold of the original 
 documents of Christianity. Reading these they 
 found out how different was the primitive Church 
 from the great corporation in Italy, which ruled 
 men’s consciences. 
 
 Erasmus, the Netherlands scholar, collected over 
 three hundred ancient manuscripts and made a new 
 translation from the Greek into elegant Latin. 
 From this ‘‘received text” — the basis of our “ King 
 James Version” — translations of the New Testa¬ 
 ment were made into nearly every language in 
 Europe. To-day, over twelve thousand manuscripts 
 have been made use of by critics and scholars, and 
 the Revised Version — the terror alike of ignorant 
 “evangelists,” reactionaries, and prelates, of both 
 the Roman and the Reformed obedience — brings 
 the record of the Church nearer to reality. 
 
 In the Netherlands, printing was free; which was 
 not then the case in England. Before the English 
 Bible was printed in England over a score of editions 
 of the Bible, or parts of the Bible, had been pub¬ 
 lished among the Flemings and Walloons in the 
 Netherlands. One can go into the Plantin Museum 
 in Antwerp to-day and see a printing office of the old 
 time. 
 
 49 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Yet even before 1453 and the exodus of the Greek 
 scholars westward, the forces were gathering that 
 were to bring in a new world of thought, of society, 
 and of economics. It would take pages to catalogue 
 all the elements in the dynamic that precipitated the 
 Reformation, or to tell of the events and men and 
 books that led up to it. Yet in the Netherlands, as 
 in every instance before and in every case since, the 
 Walloons were foremost in the great awakening of 
 the sixteenth century. 
 
 “Light from the east!” A new world of joy was 
 dawning. 
 
 The oncoming of the Reformation spoiled the 
 colossal imperialistic schemes of which Charles V 
 dreamed, and in the attempts to execute which, he 
 dealt with human life as a player with tenpins. His 
 Spanish son, Philip, came into the Netherlands 
 unable to talk the speech either of Walloon or of 
 Fleming, and only to make up his mind to murder 
 thousands of human beings, in the name of God and 
 the Church. Yet the spider in the Escurial, even 
 while spinning his web of destruction, found in 
 William of Orange the wasp that destroyed the 
 spider’s offspring; while on the day that Alva’s 
 “ blackbeards ” arrived on Belgian soil to do their 
 work of death, there was born in Antwerp a baby 
 boy, William Usselinx, who was destined not only 
 to bring to naught the plans of Alva, but to father 
 the West India Company of the Dutch Republic and 
 inaugurate the colonization of Distinctive America. 
 
j CHAPTER VII 
 THE DEATHLESS BOOK 
 
 The literature of the Bible is one of the most danger¬ 
 ous of elements to be feared by the opponents of 
 ordered freedom, whether in Church or State. This 
 is proved by that revolt against feudalism, whether 
 political or ecclesiastical, which broke out all over 
 western Europe, when the ancient literature of the 
 Hebrews and early Christians was put into the lan¬ 
 guages of modern nations. Those plain people, cari¬ 
 catured under the name of Anabaptists, did not 
 know enough to make out of Jesus what the men 
 who wore crowns and miters, or academic gowns and 
 caps, saw in Him, and they tried to reform society in 
 root and branch. Men of conscience holding Ana¬ 
 baptist ideas were quickly found in many countries 
 and especially in the Walloon provinces. Without 
 being met by argument or reason, they were burned, 
 drowned, and slaughtered as wolves or poisonous 
 vermin. In Belgic Land, both the Reformed and the 
 Romanists tried to exterminate the Anabaptists, so 
 called, by fire, burial alive, or the gallows. 
 
 Guido de Bray, the Walloon hero, was one of the 
 few who honestly tried to understand, while strenu¬ 
 ously opposing them. His chief motive was to clear 
 those of the Reformed faith from false charges. 
 Probably the ablest intellectual argument written 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 against the Anabaptists, exposing their defects, was 
 from his pen. 
 
 The Anabaptists ushered in the modern world. 
 They were like those in the Orient, the once despised 
 searchers into the secrets of Western science and 
 freedom, who in Japan, China, and India suffered 
 death for “introducing novelties” and “holding evil 
 opinions” (Christianity). Both were pioneers who 
 led the nations that have marched forward, making 
 progress over the bloody tracks of the martyrs. To 
 be put to death for conscience’ sake means first the 
 sowing of seed by the victims for larger world har¬ 
 vests. One of these victims taught the true philoso¬ 
 phy when, flinching not from the gibbet, He himself 
 dared to be the file-leader of the world’s salvation 
 and “endured the cross, despising the shame.” 
 
 No attempt is here made to tell in detail of the 
 “re-baptizers,” upon whom the crimes of Munster 
 are absurdly charged. No full account of these “pa¬ 
 riahs of history” has ever been attempted, though 
 the late Dr. J. G. de Hoop Scheffer wrote of those in 
 the Netherlands and his work was crowned as genu¬ 
 ine history by bodies of learned and judicial men. 
 Under Menno Simons they were shepherded, and 
 the Mennonites are perhaps their nearest represen¬ 
 tatives to-day. The first persons in England to re¬ 
 ceive Christian baptism, not as unconscious infants, 
 or unreasoning children, but as adults with full men¬ 
 tal powers, were Mennonites. 1 
 
 1 History of the Free Churchmen [Brownists, Pilgrim Fathers, and 
 
 52 
 
THE DEATHLESS BOOK 
 
 These people were especially opposed to human 
 slavery. It is a fact of history that we Americans 
 received by direct inheritance our freedom, not 
 from the “ churches,” then so-called, but from the 
 “sects,” which kings and prelates banned. 
 
 In the eyes of royalty and prelacy, the “damnable 
 error” of the Anabaptists was that they believed in 
 progress. They would change the existing order of 
 things, which kept scepter and crozier, with their 
 honors and revenues, in the hands of those who al¬ 
 ready held them. Down at the bottom, beneath all 
 outward demonstrations, sometimes grotesque, the 
 alleged heresy was a desire to change what, it was 
 claimed, had been ordained of God and fixed since 
 creation. It was not only “scoffers, walking after 
 their own lusts,” who said “since the fathers fell 
 asleep all things continue as they were from the be¬ 
 ginning of the creation ”; but all orthodoxy, from the 
 chair of St. Peter to the unlettered peasant, held 
 that the order of the world, society, and the Church 
 as then ruled, was fixed, and that to disturb it was 
 worse than breaking the commandments. 
 
 The modern ideas of progress, now part of our vi¬ 
 tal breath, which we inhale when on our birth-beds, 
 was utterly unknown. An individual might have 
 visions, but the Church as a mass was crystallized. 
 Even at the Reformation, there was surprisingly lit¬ 
 tle change of dogma, and, with the orthodox, no at- 
 
 Baptists], by J. G. de Hoop Scheffer; W. E. Griffis, Editor. Ithaca, 
 New York, 1922. Andrus and Church. 
 
 53 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 tempt to apply the new thought to social order. The 
 pagan philosophers, Christian fathers, “the Holy 
 Church throughout all the world,” many Reformers, 
 one and all, taught the fixity of things, which to dis¬ 
 turb, or even challenge, was a crime. The earth, and 
 even the universe, was as a cabinet, elaborately con¬ 
 structed and fitted together, but never to be touched 
 for alteration; for change would mean destruction. 
 Social reform would spoil honors, revenue, office, and 
 power, and wither ambition. All truth was a “de¬ 
 posit” in care of the holy centralized Church, to be 
 held as a sacred trust, never to be added to or dimin¬ 
 ished. It was already full day and no new sunshine, 
 no fresh sunlight was to break out of the Bible, or 
 the Consistory, or the Orient. All things were to 
 continue as they were until the Dies Irce: 
 
 “ That Day of Wrath, that awful day 
 When man to judgment wakes from clay,” 
 
 and the elements were to “melt with fervent heat.” 
 
 The Brethren believed differently. After they had 
 digested the results of the Renaissance, or New 
 Birth of Learning, as far as they could assimilate 
 what they had learned, they got hold of the Bible. 
 This was like adding a blast to the furnace, or wind 
 to a prairie fire. It swept over Europe. It was a time 
 of exhaustion, and the common people, after endless 
 wars and distress from industrial oppression, were 
 intoxicated with expected freedom. Liberty turned 
 into license and some disturbances resulted. 
 
 54 
 
THE DEATHLESS BOOK 
 
 Yet with how little wisdom was the world gov¬ 
 erned ! The authorities in Church and State, instead 
 of seeking the cause and laying the axe at the root 
 of the trouble, could see only the outward and de¬ 
 structive phases. They were too blind, too hardened 
 in routine to discern the creative energy inherent in 
 the movement. In the score of crimes alleged against 
 the Anabaptists, the capital charge was that they 
 stood for progress. They wanted to change things. 
 That meant heresy. The Church had built itself 
 upon the motto of Tertullian, given in the third cen¬ 
 tury: “A rule of faith changeless and incapable of 
 reformation.” So fire, flood, the gallows, and the 
 sword were invoked for the suppression of these 
 militant reformers. 
 
 Nevertheless to-day church edifices stand on the 
 old ash heaps of human fuel, and “the sects” can 
 look back on victories which “the Church” claims 
 as her own. The time did indeed come when not only 
 the Church, but the Reformers needed reforming. 
 So the Quakers, the Methodists, the Mennonites, 
 and other contestants for the excellency of the knowl¬ 
 edge of the Master, entered the race. In the perspec¬ 
 tive of years and the vision of to-day, can any show 
 a better record than that of the Friends? 
 
 Whether as friend, critic, or enemy we judge 
 State and Church persons, events, or movements, 
 we should not fail to recognize the good in all and 
 note what has been done by them. My own ideas 
 about the Anabaptists were given in “The New 
 
 55 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 World” for December, 1895, after visits to their 
 churches and historic places in the Netherlands, in¬ 
 terviews with their people there and in our country, 
 and some study of their history and beliefs. The 
 quotation here made seems more than ever true and 
 pertinent, after the great military upheaval, from 
 1914 to 1918, in which the failure of the Sword to 
 bring order in the world was shown and when the 
 taunt of the smug churchman, “He saved others, 
 himself he cannot save,” may have a suggestion of 
 another and the right way. The Anabaptists made 
 at least the attempt to walk in the Christ’s path. 
 
 Interpreting then the movement called “Anabaptist,” 
 which began as soon as the Bible was widely read in the 
 vernaculars of Europe, in the light of to-day, when over 
 the fairest parts of the earth kings are becoming phan¬ 
 toms and political bishops shadows, when republics are 
 common and the Constitution of the United States, an 
 Anabaptist document, is over one hundred years old, we 
 find these to be the fundamental doctrines of the people 
 [the Anabaptists] who tried to take Jesus Christ seriously. 
 
 1. Separation of Church and State. 
 
 2. No official meddling with the conscience. 
 
 3. No persecution on account of religion. 
 
 4. Every man free to worship God according to the 
 dictates of his own conscience. 
 
 5. No damnation of infants. 
 
 6. The salvation of the God-seeking heathen. 
 
 7. The priesthood of all believers. 
 
 8. All the commands of Christ binding. 
 
 9. Honest translations of the Bible. 
 
 10. The Bible in the hands of the people. 
 
 56 
 
THE DEATHLESS BOOK 
 
 11. The Written Word to be honored, but not wor¬ 
 shiped. 
 
 12. The Holy Spirit to be constantly sought for aid and 
 guidance. 
 
 13. Self-governing churches, with the rights and powers 
 of the congregation, as set forth in the New Testa¬ 
 ment. 
 
 14. The validity of congregational ordination of pastors 
 and teachers, who were not necessarily to be a dis¬ 
 tinct class. 
 
 15. Congregational singing. (The Anabaptists made and 
 sang some of the very first modern evangelical 
 hymns.) 
 
 16. Home and foreign missions. (By the very terms of 
 their church membership, they were missionaries; 
 they understood and practiced “beginning at Jeru¬ 
 salem. ”) 
 
 17. Social and political, as well as ecclesiastical recon¬ 
 struction. 
 
 18. The reform of penology and of prisons. (Most of 
 them held to abolition of the death-penalty and 
 to the root-idea of the indeterminate sentence, both 
 here and hereafter.) 
 
 19. No human slavery or serfdom, but the equality of 
 all men. 
 
 20. The education of women and the equalization of the 
 sexes, especially in religious life and privilege. 
 
 In a word, unless we have misread their own confes¬ 
 sions and the creeds which they were driven to formulate, 
 and unless we mistake the voices heard out of the dun¬ 
 geon, rack, and fire, the above articles, in outline, con¬ 
 stituted the faith of the people whom the magistrates and 
 churchmen of the sixteenth century — excepting only 
 William the Silent and the Dutch Republic — felt it 
 necessary to exterminate. In Anabaptist confessions, oral 
 
 57 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 and verbal, we discover the~seed-bed of the great truths 
 now held by us as most precious. The form in which the 
 Brethren tried to realize their vision seemed, three cen¬ 
 turies and a half ago, as destructive to the institutions 
 then existing as Christ’s real teachings actually are to the 
 selfish and ambitious holders of wealth and power to-day. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WHERE AND WHEN BEGAN THE REFORMATION ? 
 
 The Huguenot Walloon is the child of the Refor¬ 
 mation. 
 
 If we must insist upon setting a date, or naming a 
 place for the visible beginning of that very complex 
 movement called the Reformation, we may as well 
 look to Paris, and find the man, who spoke in the 
 French language, which the Walloons not only 
 talked but read. The word “Protestant” refers to 
 an event in Germany, while the term “Catholic’* 
 has been corrupted from its original meaning. A 
 far better term, descriptive of Christianity, when 
 stripped of its accretions and deformities, is the 
 word “ Reformed,” while the phrase in the creed 
 “The Holy Christian Church” is one untainted with 
 the notions of sect, locality, or monopoly. 
 
 It was the Bible, and not any “sect” or “church,” 
 that turned the old world upside down and ushered 
 in a new and better one. It was ancient literature 
 that kept burning the torch and lesson of ordered 
 freedom which we enjoy to-day. It was as much 
 through music and song, as by sermon, or reading, or 
 preaching, that the spark of the new fire became a 
 revolutionary conflagration. The pathway for the 
 Calvinistic or Reformed phase of the faith — as de¬ 
 picted in the sculptures of the Monument of the 
 
 59 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Reformation in Geneva and unveiled in our decade 
 
 •— was made clear. 
 
 If music be conceived of as a universal language, in 
 its appeal to the emotions, then also in the Nether¬ 
 lands we may discern the home of modern music and 
 the original of its notation. Among other eminent 
 and creative musicians was Josquin des Pres, or 
 Depres (1450-1521); the foremost composer of his 
 age, who developed counterpoint. He won even the 
 praise of Luther, and he certainly prepared the way 
 for the Reformation, by adapting musical themes to 
 the words of the piece. His journey to Rome marks 
 the transfer of the musical art from Gallo-Belgium, 
 its birthplace, to Italy; which for two centuries there¬ 
 after was the center of the musical world. 
 
 Reformed Christianity in France was not of for¬ 
 eign origin. It grew up on the soil. Years before 
 Luther, Calvin, or Zwingli, France was astir with 
 thought and there was a great outburst of literary 
 activity following upon the new learning. In the 
 university of Paris, one of the oldest and greatest in 
 Europe, the theological division was the Sorbonne. 
 In a true university, theology — which is the adjust¬ 
 ment of what man believes with what he knows — is 
 studied as one of the sciences. More and more, in 
 America, our purely sectarian schools of divinity 
 receive less support and are being affiliated with 
 universities. 
 
 When popes, emperors, cardinals, and kings 
 looked at the “sects” of free churchmen which arose 
 
 60 
 
THE GREAT MONUMENT OF THE (CALVINISTIC) REFORMATION AT GENEVA (1918) 
 
WHERE THE REFORMATION BEGAN 
 
 from the study of the Bible, they were both sur¬ 
 prised and amused at the idea of these having any 
 power, or even any future. They called the Re¬ 
 formed the “Pretended Religion.” 
 
 The idea that from a literature alone, without a 
 thousand years of organization, force, and economic 
 values behind it, there could issue any permanent 
 potency for the making of new men and a new soci¬ 
 ety, was regarded by prelates as rather a good joke. 
 
 The history of the last four hundred years shows 
 that these “sects” which had most to do with mak¬ 
 ing the Dutch Republic, the English Common¬ 
 wealth, and the United States of America, had more 
 power than the popes, emperors, and kings, dynasties 
 and conquerors, that have come and gone. 
 
 There was a professor in the Paris University, 
 born in 1496 and bearing a name that is common in 
 our telephone directories, La Febre, or Lefevre, a 
 Doctor of the Sorbonne. He was what is called, even 
 yet, a “good Catholic.” Studying the Bible, he 
 found in it much wonderful truth and many fresh 
 ideas — as all will who make themselves familiar 
 with the old writings of deep thinkers, whether in 
 “the classics” or “Holy Writ.” Mr. Gladstone and 
 the Pope alike recommended the study of ancient 
 theology to freshen the brain. Such study un¬ 
 shackles the mind. 
 
 Lefevre introduced the study of this wonderful 
 literature as a new science — or one old enough to 
 seem new — and gave lectures upon what he had 
 
 61 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 read. The lords and ladies of the Court attended 
 and were delighted. The King’s sister, Margaret of 
 Valois, a highly cultivated woman, with many of 
 the nobles, was charmed and became an adherent. 
 Work went on and ideas spread. Even bishops co¬ 
 labored with Farel, the Swiss Reformer, whom we 
 may call the spiritual father of Calvin. It was he 
 who told the King of France that the Huguenot 
 anvil would wear out all hammers that strike it. 
 
 France had three other teachers, who were in 
 Paris at one and the same time, Calvin, Rabelais, 
 and Loyola. The first was the champion of freedom 
 and democracy in the Church and of our public 
 schools. Our great historian Bancroft fitly calls Cal¬ 
 vin “the father of popular education, the inventor 
 of the system of free schools.” 
 
 Rabelais destroyed respect for sacred things and 
 good government. Yet to his influence, the great 
 Belgian prose epic “The Legend of the Glorious 
 Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel,” which Charles de 
 Coster put in modern form, owes its existence. 
 
 Loyola instituted the order of the Jesuits, which 
 were later driven out of nearly every country in 
 Europe. 
 
 “ It was a time,” Guizot tells us, “when two con¬ 
 trary winds were blowing over Europe . . . one car¬ 
 rying skepticism and licentiousness, while the other 
 breathed only Christian faith and the severest mo¬ 
 rality.” 
 
 France made her choice, with the result that the 
 
 62 
 
WHERE THE REFORMATION BEGAN 
 
 French became great in everything but religion, 
 morality, and self-government. The aristocratic in 
 France found the Bible religion too severe. Instead 
 of Calvinism, with its high and pure virtue and se¬ 
 rious temper, the French rulers chose rather to follow 
 tradition, frivolous skepticism, and reactionary fa¬ 
 naticism — which issued in as cruel persecutions as 
 ever were known to Iroquois, Apaches, or Pawnees. 
 From the seed sown by her accepted teachers she 
 reaped the harvest of the Revolution of 1793. 
 
 The same methods as those used in war in Asia 
 and in Africa were employed in France and Spain 
 to stamp out the New Religion, as it was called. 
 Steeped in the ideas of feudalism, men in Church 
 and State imagined that truth was like wood and 
 could be burned to ashes by fire. Dr. Guillot was not 
 yet born, and the sheep-killing machine, which he in¬ 
 vented and which was named after him, was not yet 
 in use for human beings; but the hre, the sword, 
 the scourge, and the red-hot iron were at hand. The 
 decapitating machine, that made Paris a slaughter 
 house, came later. 
 
 The king, Henry IV, who was at first delighted 
 with the old truths so freshly presented, changed his 
 mind. Surrounded as he was by priests and monks, 
 he began to think it dangerous when such a book got 
 among the common people. Priestcraft, in every 
 land and age, is always in terror of too much general 
 education among the people. The New Testament, 
 when translated into French, which every one 
 
 63 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 could read, meant what the Great Democrat and 
 Lover of the People had said, “The truth shall make 
 you free.” In the older Testament, they found that 
 a large part of it consisted of the history of slaves, 
 who had escaped from tyrant kings and formed re¬ 
 publics and chosen their own rulers, and that this 
 early history was followed by good laws and songs of 
 deliverance. That is what the Old Testament con¬ 
 sists of — Law, History, Poetry, and Prophecy, or, 
 in the Hebrew Bible, of Law, Prophecy, and Litera¬ 
 ture. 
 
 At once the French monarch and court, kingcraft 
 and priestcraft, saw the danger of letting the people 
 know the Bible record, which showed that kings 
 and the so-called saints were sinners like common 
 people. 
 
 So “the King’s religion” prevailed by the power 
 of the sword, the fagot, and the dragoons. These 
 hunted out Christians, as bloodhounds were used to 
 track out slaves, and they did their work thoroughly. 
 Like a lioness devouring her cub, France, having 
 tasted the blood of her own children, was roused to a 
 fury of hate, and sent them into exile. Thus she 
 helped to enrich other countries, to colonize Amer¬ 
 ica, and to make herself poorer. When at last she 
 had a revolution, which swept away feudal and royal 
 ideas, while so changing the method of holding prop¬ 
 erty as to become the country with the greatest num¬ 
 ber of landowners, her manner of doing it, in fright¬ 
 fulness, startled the world. The French Revolution 
 
 64 
 
WHERE THE REFORMATION BEGAN 
 
 set a red blotch on the pages of history, with reac¬ 
 tions toward two eras of Napoleonism. Emissaries 
 in President Washington’s time attempted to infect 
 America with French notions and methods of revo¬ 
 lution; but the teachings of Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, 
 as much as the Anglo-Saxon inheritances and the 
 firmness and vision of Washington, saved us from 
 “the red fool fury of the Seine,” giving us orderly 
 evolution, instead of a revolution that broke with 
 the past. 
 
 In French history the Huguenots became a pow¬ 
 erful political party, as well as an ecclesiastical body 
 of believers, whose activities need not concern us 
 here, except so far as to differentiate clearly the 
 ethnic relations of the two Christian communities, 
 Belgic Walloon and French Huguenot, that held to 
 the same form of faith and spoke the same language. 
 Both helped in the one object and enterprise of 
 becoming inhabitants of those United Colonies, to 
 which, on the 9th of September, 1776, by the Conti¬ 
 nental Congress, was given the name of “The United 
 States.” 
 
 The true origin of the term Huguenot is not cer¬ 
 tainly known. It has been sought to be derived from 
 a small coin, minted in France about 1560; from the 
 German word, eidengenossen, meaning men banded 
 or confederated; from the saint, Hugo; from Huss- 
 guenons, Huguenons, or apes of John Huss; from the 
 Flemish Heghenen, meaning precisian or Puritan; or 
 even from a mispronunciation of the old Greek term 
 
 65 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 for gnostic or heretic. It is most probable that the 
 English form of the word came in from the Low 
 Countries, where “Huguenoot” referred to one in 
 the household of the [Reformed] faith. Both “Wal¬ 
 loon” and “Huguenot” follow the same analogy of 
 form, spelling, and pronunciation, though the latter 
 was shortened to its present form. 
 
 Whatever be the origin of the term “Huguenot,” 
 or of Reformed Christianity in France, neither was 
 of foreign origin. Both grew up out of the soil, as 
 naturally as a violet or a lily, and the perfume of the 
 lives of the converts was like that of the flower gar¬ 
 dens. The term as that of a distinct party was not 
 applied until about 1560, the partisans of Henry IV 
 being so called. 
 
 Any fixed system, by which men make money, get 
 their living, or gain revenue, honor, ease or privilege, 
 is hard to change. Those who try to reform it are 
 considered dangerous enemies to society, and as not 
 only heretics, but even traitors. Greed, ambition, 
 love of pleasure and comfort may be rooted in any 
 religion, so miscalled. It is so much more easy to use 
 force, instead of brains or argument. So in France, 
 Reformed Christianity was put down by cavalry, 
 infantry, and artillery, by massacre and fire, and the 
 Huguenots were cast out. Yet the process was like 
 shoveling gold into other lands and thus mightily 
 enriching England, the Dutch Republic, Denmark, 
 Sweden, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, the two 
 Americas, and South Africa. Nevertheless, Chris- 
 
 " 66 
 
WHERE THE REFORMATION BEGAN 
 
 tianity was itself a heresy banned by the Church 
 and therefore under political persecution, wherever 
 Church and State were united. “The world grows 
 by heresy.” 
 
 In Belgic Land, the Walloons were and are always 
 ready for new ideas, even though they do not hold to 
 them or persevere as tenaciously as do the Flemings. 
 Being so near France, the fires of faith were easily 
 kindled among them. The Walloons exercising their 
 minds, tens of thousands of them quickly became 
 Huguenots in their church life. The province of 
 Hainault and the city of Valenciennes were the foci 
 of their activities. We must not forget that some of 
 the richest cities now in northeastern France were 
 formerly Belgic and Walloon. 
 
 Walloons and French love music and song. In 
 1540, in Paris, Clement Marot, professor of Hebrew 
 at the Sorbonne, who has already been noticed, 
 wishing to improve the public taste, translated into 
 French verse some twenty — and still later, thirty 
 of the psalms. The words, fitly chosen, were full of 
 beauty and sweetness. The metre was in the style 
 of the popular ballads, which everybody could sing 
 and the melodies were “catchy”; for here was a case 
 of “immortal music married to immortal words.” 
 Marot built his “miracle of song” on the founda¬ 
 tions laid by Depres. Soon the ladies and gentlemen 
 at Court were singing Holy Scripture in verse. 
 
 Then the fashion spread rapidly to all classes. 
 Without knowing or intending it, Marot gave a 
 
 67 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 mighty impulse to the gospel and the religion of the 
 apostles’ days. In the Swiss Republic, the French¬ 
 men, Calvin and Beza, saw at once the power of mu¬ 
 sic and song, which even boys and girls enjoyed. 
 They realized that congregational singing, as if on 
 wings, would make the gospel fly into many lands. 
 So Beza translated and versified a hundred more of 
 the Hebrew psalms, making a hymnbook for the 
 whole body of Huguenot churches. These, in many 
 editions, were bound up with the Bible. 
 
 The joy and delight of the popular singing of holy 
 thoughts and words spread like a prairie fire over all 
 Europe. Instead of the churches having only old 
 Latin choral music, as sung by a few, the glad mes¬ 
 sages from Holy Writ were heard in song by hun¬ 
 dreds of congregations. In tens of thousands of 
 homes, hearts and voices were joined to make better 
 life and manners and love of the beautiful. At first 
 and for some years, all Christians of every name 
 joined in psalm singing for mutual good. Later on, 
 Christians enjoyed a glorious hymnology, which 
 enriched life in church and home. 
 
 In the songs and music of Marot, which are the 
 same as are still sung in the Huguenot churches 
 throughout the world to-day, the undying fire of the 
 Hebrew lyrics was enkindled anew. They very early 
 resounded in the Walloon homes in New Netherland 
 and New York. When after 1685 this Middle Re¬ 
 gion of toleration began to be peopled by Huguenots 
 from France, Marot’s psalms were heard in place of 
 
 68 
 
WHERE THE REFORMATION BEGAN 
 
 J 
 
 chimes or carillons. The worshipers, on foot or in ve¬ 
 hicles, journeying every Saturday for divine service, 
 from New Rochelle to the Marketfield Street church 
 on Manhattan, compassed the long distance from 
 New Rochelle with these songs of joy and deliver¬ 
 ance. 
 
 The new life of Europe, in the Reformation, be¬ 
 gan in France and Belgic Land when music was in its 
 renaissance with song, organ, and carillon; for even 
 the chimes in the belfries rang out Marot’s psalms. 
 In Germany, the Reformation, starting in the time 
 of the new invention, or importation, of movable 
 types, proceeded more by printing presses, ink, and 
 types. Two hundred thousand Bibles are said to 
 have been produced within a decade. 
 
 By contrast in the air, by voice and in the heart, 
 it was melody that rolled out from the Huguenots 
 wherever found. French music is infused with pas¬ 
 sion, German with intellect, Italian with melody. 
 This grand passion in the soul issued to the making 
 in time of a new France, which, in our day, after 
 many reverses and afflictions, has come to the Hu¬ 
 guenot position — liberty of conscience and of pri¬ 
 vate judgment, free public schools, general educa¬ 
 tion, and a republicanism tending to democracy; in 
 a word, to the ideas of Calvin, one of the most illus¬ 
 trious of the many illustrious sons of France. 
 
 In the Netherlands, the land’s Lord Paramount 
 was that same Philip II, who “ promoted the colo¬ 
 nization of America ’ ’ in two ways: first by sending, 
 
 69 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 in 1565, a naval expedition with twenty-five hundred 
 men, to murder the French Huguenots in Florida 
 and to destroy their settlement; and, in the second 
 place, by depopulating as far as he was able the rich¬ 
 est part of his dominions and of Europe, the Nether¬ 
 lands. “ In 1566, he wrote to his ambassador at the 
 Holy See, to tell the pope, that if he found himself 
 obliged to use force it would ‘involve the utter de¬ 
 struction of this country’! But he added that he 
 would resolve on that rather than ‘ be in thought or 
 will a lord of heretics.’” A few years later, unable 
 either to forget or to learn anything, he dispatched 
 for the conquest of England another naval expedi¬ 
 tion, pompously named the Invincible Armada, — 
 loaded with bilboes and shackles — and all done in 
 the name of Christ and of the saints. 
 
 After such exhibitions of insanity in rulers, one 
 need not wonder at the rise of a new kind of state, 
 such as the American Commonwealth, from which 
 kings and thrones and the powers of united Church 
 and State were abolished. 
 
 Philip II had only royal and autocratic ideas and 
 thus he reasoned: was not his army not only the fin¬ 
 est in Europe, the first to be armed wholly with 
 muskets, and were not the two thousand women (of 
 the wrong kind) sent too in the name of the Holy 
 Father in Rome and the Holy Mother Church, to 
 sally forth as Crusaders to convert or kill? Alva 
 would attend to both orthodoxy and economics — 
 enforce Christ’s blessed gospel and also lay a tax of 
 
 70 
 
WHERE THE REFORMATION BEGAN 
 
 the tenth penny. How could God allow failure to 
 such a beneficent policy? Yet somehow the Nether- 
 landers could not and would not agree to this. So 
 they were heretics. 
 
 The world of to-day rejoices in a more hopeful 
 Spain and a more spiritual papacy for the blessing 
 of mankind. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE WALLOON HERO: GUIDO DE BRAY 
 
 The prelates soon discovered that the new music, 
 and especially the words of the Hebrew lyrics put 
 into French, were not favorable to the centralized 
 government of the corporation at Rome. Under in¬ 
 fluence of the powers ruling supreme in that city and 
 region, the Old Church people gave up congrega¬ 
 tional singing, and let the Reformed children of 
 faith and praise have the new songs all to them¬ 
 selves. 
 
 This was like “giving wings to a tiger.” It put 
 into the hands of Calvin and the Geneva reformers, 
 who were passionate lovers of beauty and true art, a 
 tremendous weapon of defense and an instrument 
 of propagation, which is powerful even to this day. 
 With vocal music and popular song, the good news 
 of God flew, as on wings to millions, whose only idea 
 of what the Bible was had been derived from the 
 mass and ritual — told in Latin, a dead language. 
 Now, with the Bible, the literature of power, put 
 into a tongue which the people could understand, 
 with song and psalm on their lips also, not only in 
 the church, but in the home, at work, and in play, 
 the morning of a long day of general happiness broke 
 brightly. In all the human story none has laid a 
 
 72 
 
GUIDO DE BRAY 
 
 broader or firmer basis for “the durable satisfac¬ 
 tions of life,” or of enduring joy and power, than the 
 Puritan — the true son of truth, and not his coun¬ 
 terfeit, the hypocrite. 
 
 Yet in this new pleasure, there was something else 
 than sensuous and intellectual enjoyment. It led to 
 better standards of life, purer and more exalted. It 
 helped to banish the low, vulgar songs of lust. Those 
 who have read of the cult of St. Goliard and the vile 
 abuse made of “music, heavenly maid” by male 
 singers who had good voices, but bad characters, 
 and the moral devastation wrought by them, can un¬ 
 derstand the purifying and uplifting power of the 
 new music, on which floated divine and inspiring 
 thoughts. 
 
 Hence from the first, the Huguenots were noted 
 for the singular purity of their lives. Indeed, they 
 have ever been the salt which has preserved what is 
 best in the life of modern France, where conscience is 
 now free. Ethics and religion were vitally connected 
 and the one fed the other. 
 
 While in England and Scotland too many of the 
 Puritans cast away their organs and musical instru¬ 
 ments, the Netherlanders retained these to their 
 profit. Their congregational singing, thus improved, 
 had no superior in any land. 
 
 Nevertheless, after ascribing to music and song 
 their full part in the awakening of the Netherlanders 
 to reform in religion, we must not ignore other influ¬ 
 ences, deep, lasting, and long at work, in transform- 
 
 73 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 ing especially the Walloons. Seen in perspective the 
 succession of vivifying ideas is almost unbroken. 
 
 During the onrushing centuries, from the time of 
 the Verdun Compact, in 843 a.d., to the great Ref¬ 
 ormation, the twofold development of the Belgic 
 people went on. In Flanders, civilization was more 
 and more influenced by Germany, Flemish blood and 
 speech being more akin to those in the Teutonic 
 world. The southern or Walloon people were 
 moulded by the fortunes and culture of the Gauls, 
 the Gallo-Romans and the French. 
 
 During these centuries the work of the Church 
 and the saints or missionaries was a noble one, for 
 the whole country became more or less Christian. 
 Roughly we may say that several civilizations, one 
 after another, with their representatives, in speech, 
 ideas, and dynasties, had come and gone. Under the 
 Romans, Christianity made a beginning in softening 
 rude manners and in every way improving the con¬ 
 ditions of social and political life. The Romans in¬ 
 troduced many good things, such as roads, farms, 
 letters, writing, and architecture. 
 
 The Franks came out of the Northeast. They 
 destroyed in large measure Roman civilization, but 
 they built up another, different in form and spirit. 
 Coming as pagans, they adopted Christianity. The 
 Frankish Empire, under the Church and civiliza¬ 
 tion, was rebuilt. There were still much cruelty 
 and barbarism, but the teachers of religion strove 
 “to bring charity, art, and culture into the world.” 
 
 74 
 
GUIDO DE BRAY 
 
 So we may say that as the pagan Celts had been 
 civilized in the third century, so the pagan Franks 
 were in the seventh. 
 
 Then out of the North, but nearer the pole and 
 from the lands of the aurora borealis, Sweden, Nor¬ 
 way, and Denmark — they were all “Danes” then 
 — came the Normans, or Norsemen, in their keeled 
 boats with dragon-prows, piloted by the ravens. 
 Being one in their savagery, greed, traditions, and 
 impulses to exploration, their expeditions were not at 
 first strictly in the interests of science, or art, or reli¬ 
 gion. Yet they were partly Christianized and they 
 too advanced Belgic civilization. Under them, some 
 of the oldest names now among us, such as Baldwin 
 and de Forest, had their origin. When they left the 
 country, barbarism again triumphed over civiliza¬ 
 tion, and the work of the Church had to be done 
 over again with greater zeal and earnestness. 
 
 With the churches was ushered in the era of the 
 bells and belfries, adding new features to the Belgic 
 landscape and making of the Netherlands the Coun¬ 
 try of the Carillons. The first idea and purpose of 
 the bells, when joined to the church edifice, was to 
 warn off all imps, demons, and evil spirits. Later 
 they were rung in storm, or at the hour of dusk to 
 guide travelers to shelter. 
 
 During these centuries, from the ninth to the 
 thirteenth, the Christian Church, in its various ex¬ 
 ternal forms, was the mother of art, while the sacred 
 edifices, along with the castles and monasteries, be- 
 
 75 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 came the most characteristic features of the land¬ 
 scape, so far as this was affected by man. The influ¬ 
 ence of religion penetrated the family and beautified 
 the home. The lives of the good men and women in 
 the Church were models for imitation, and the baptis¬ 
 mal names of infants were borrowed as inspiring re¬ 
 membrancers. Even the leader of the Walloon set¬ 
 tlement of 1624 in New York, Jesse de Forest, bore a 
 name which of old was Josse, that of a Belgian saint. 
 
 Some scholars — usually devoted followers of the 
 papacy — think that the thirteenth was the greatest 
 of all the centuries. In one view it was, for, beside 
 its great creations, the Italian monopoly of the reli¬ 
 gion of Europe west of Constantinople attained its 
 highest splendor in this time of the “ Middle,” or, as 
 some say, the “ Dark” Ages; while others think these 
 were the “Ages of Faith.” Then the Bible was 
 heard of only in a dead language, and few could read 
 or write. Celibacy had been made the rule for the 
 priests; that is, almost the entire body of educated 
 men were condemned to single life. Then the home 
 was degraded and centuries of intellectual sterility 
 followed. The celibate priest and knight, but not 
 the scholar or man of science, swayed the minds of 
 men. The thinker was feared, as if a child of the Evil 
 One. Only very few were able to form judgments 
 of their own. 
 
 Nevertheless there were always some who held to 
 the ideals of the Christ and his apostles and to the 
 simple norm of the Christian faith. To them Chris- 
 
 ' 76 
 
GUIDO DE BRAY 
 
 tianity was not a form of words, a set of symbols, or 
 a method of government, but life — even the fol¬ 
 lowing of Him who “left us an example.” 
 
 Among the Walloons in Belgic Land, for example, 
 there was a continuous succession of teachers, who 
 challenged the pretensions of the Roman corpora¬ 
 tion; such as Tanchelin, the Vaudois, Bulgares, 
 Beguines, Lollards, Men of Intelligence, Brethren of 
 the Free Spirit, the Bloemderdines, Brethren of the 
 Common Lot, Hussites, Gondolfians, etc. All these 
 paved the way for the Great Reformation. 
 
 The Waldenses of Italy, numbering thousands of 
 Christians, held to the simple faith of the days of 
 the apostles. When these were slaughtered, driven 
 away, or exiled by the Dukes of Savoy, they found a 
 champion in Cromwell the Protector, in Milton the 
 poet, and in Leisler the American. Hundreds of 
 these people came to America, settling on Staten 
 Island and in other places. 
 
 It was during these centuries, after the fall of the 
 Roman Empire, that feudalism became the estab¬ 
 lished order of society and government and the 
 framework of morals. Many nations passed through 
 its long discipline. 
 
 Another feature of organic life in the Walloon 
 churches, derived from France, was the model of 
 government by means of pastor and elders, with dea¬ 
 cons to minister in charitable affairs. This govern¬ 
 ing body was and is called the Consistory — with 
 scriptural authority exceeding that claimed by the 
 
 77 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 papal Senate, or cabinet. The Consistory is made up 
 of the officers of the church gathered together. In 
 the earlier congregations, all members of the church 
 voted. This ordered, this well-regulated democracy 
 was astounding to royalty and the prelates. Even 
 to-day there is an almost antipodal difference among 
 native Dutch writers, in the method and spirit of 
 their treatment of the history of the Fatherland, ac¬ 
 cording as they have lived within, or without, the at¬ 
 mosphere of Christian home life and the democracy 
 of the Reformed Church. 
 
 How ready the Walloons always had been to ac¬ 
 cept, or at least be interested in new ideas, is seen in 
 the welcome they gave to the various forms of truth 
 at different times, as set forth by earnest preachers; 
 so that the region of the southern or Walloon prov¬ 
 inces was called by the name (which the Dutch Re¬ 
 public afterwards received), “The Land of Heresy.” 
 
 It has been remarked by Hansen, the penetrating 
 historian of “The Reformed Church in the Nether¬ 
 lands,” that “the attachment of the people of the 
 Netherlands [Republic] to Calvinism [or ecclesiasti¬ 
 cal democracy] is in great part to be accounted for 
 by the influence of the Walloon congregations.” It 
 is certainly worth recalling that the vengeful repris¬ 
 als against Spanish tyranny and the legal murders 
 wrought by infuriated Protestants in the form of 
 burning monks alive, were at the hands of the Flem¬ 
 ings, and not the Walloons. Hansen adds the names 
 of the four eminent preachers of the Reformed 
 
 78 
 
GUIDO DE BRAY 
 
 doctrines, Guido de Bray, Henry Modet, Franciscus 
 Junius, of Walloon, and Petrus d’Athenus, of Flem¬ 
 ish origin. 
 
 The very names of these Walloon churches, organ¬ 
 ized as early as 1561, reveal their animus as being 
 gentle and charitable. They were known among 
 themselves by distinctive terms, in imitation of the 
 societies of the rhetoricians, such as the Rose Tree, 
 Rosebud, Vineyard, Sword, Lily, Palm Tree, Olive 
 Tree, Wheat Sheaf, Violet, and Roosevelt, or Rose 
 Field. Of their secret synods, in the years 1563, 
 1564, 1566, the last was the most important. In 
 1567, the murderous Spanish army was on the soil 
 and Guido de Bray was made a martyr to “truth 
 on the scaffold.” 
 
 This lion-hearted hero was one of the greatest of 
 the Walloons. He was not a fighter with swords or 
 spears, he did not burn men alive, or wish to do 
 so, but with pen and voice he fought the good fight 
 of faith, for purity of life and for the original gen¬ 
 uine gospel. Our Motley, the fascinating historian, 
 scarcely more than mentions the name of Guy de 
 Bres, or Guido de Bray, and utterly ignores his work. 
 Yet the Belgic Confession of Faith, from his pen, is 
 one of the noblest monuments of Walloon literature. 
 What he did proved to be even greater in lasting re¬ 
 sults upon four nations, Holland, England, Germany, 
 and the United States than that of some of Motley’s 
 heroes, who occupy many pages in that author’s 
 dramatic narrative. To-day the Reformer’s great 
 
 79 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 writing, “The Belgic Confession,” is studied on all 
 continents. 
 
 Guido de Bray, or Guy de Bres (Flemish and Wal¬ 
 loon forms of the same name), born in 1640 at Mons, 
 had more to do with the making of the Dutch Repub¬ 
 lic and the United States of America than many a 
 more famous man. He was a champion of ordered 
 freedom in Christ, of liberty under law, and of the 
 right of the individual to interpret the Scriptures. 
 At that time, whether right or wrong, the general im¬ 
 pression about these Christians nicknamed Anabap¬ 
 tists was, that they were opposed, not only to all or¬ 
 der and government, but to all decency. Certainly 
 in Hainault, in a time of economic distress, these tur¬ 
 bulent people committed great excesses, yet they 
 never equaled orthodox churchmen in brutality. 
 Because of this wrong impression, sedulously kept 
 up by the priests, thousands of innocent persons, Bi¬ 
 ble Christians, who were horrified at the idea of be¬ 
 ing anarchists, or violators of law, either human or 
 divine, were put to death. This was because, as 
 a rule, most people, including especially political 
 church rulers, led by Alva, the Spaniard, were only 
 too slow to discriminate, provided they could kill, 
 burn, or — what was often the chief motive in the 
 case — confiscate property whether of Catholic or 
 of Protestant. Millions of human beings, pure and 
 righteous in God’s sight, have been put to death 
 through ignorance or suspicion, and of these Alva 
 slew thousands. 
 
 80 
 
GUIDO DE BRAY 
 
 It was the mission of Guido de Bray to clear the 
 good name of true Christians from specific slanders. 
 He wrote a book, a rare copy of which the writer of 
 this work has examined. It was directed against the 
 Anabaptists. The chief motive for his composing 
 the Belgic Confession of Faith was for the purpose 
 of clearing his fellow believers from false charges. 
 
 His next great aim was to unite all Christians of 
 the Reformed faith in one body of love and mutual 
 service, but not by means of fire, torture, infantry, 
 cavalry, and artillery, such as Philip II employed, 
 but in charity, and through preaching, teaching, and 
 representative government. At Poitiers, once a 
 bloody field of war, he penned the great confession. 
 No greater battle was ever fought or victory won 
 than was wrought through the Belgic Confession. 
 
 As a student, he became master of languages, es¬ 
 pecially those in which the Bible was written, the 
 Hebrew and the Greek — the languages that are 
 never dead, but are ever fresh, provoking new 
 thought. These tongues possess the power of an 
 endless life and will never die while humanity 
 lives. 
 
 When this hero, as brave as any soldier that ever 
 charged a battery, found himself surrounded by 
 spies and informers and likely to be imprisoned, and 
 thus lose his opportunity, he fled to England, where 
 were already thousands of his fellow refugees. In 
 London he met the reformers Bucer, John a Lasco, 
 and others. Above all things the Anglican prelates 
 
 81 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 wished theirs to be considered “a true Reformed 
 Church.” The old edifice of the Austin Friars had 
 been given by Edward VI of England to the Belgic 
 and Dutch Pilgrim Fathers. It seems a paradox, but 
 the oldest of the existing Reformed Dutch churches 
 was gathered on English soil. To this day, the Neth¬ 
 erlands people in London meet here for worship in 
 the tongue of their fathers. In the crypt of Canter¬ 
 bury Cathedral, a Walloon church has worshiped 
 since 1550. 
 
 Curiously enough, the Tudor and Stuart kings al¬ 
 lowed foreign Non-conformists to have their own 
 church order, ritual, and doctrines, even when they 
 hunted down and drove out to other countries the 
 Free Churchmen who were native Englishmen. Eco¬ 
 nomic motives and ideas of expediency prevailed. 
 These industrious craftsmen enriched the realm. 
 
 Returning from his first exile, Guido de Bray 
 stayed for a while in Mons (or Malines) and then 
 went into Switzerland, studying first at Lausanne, 
 then at Geneva. Coming into contact with the 
 greatest minds in Europe — those of John Calvin and 
 Theodore Beza — he became more and more in love 
 with freedom and law, and a Divine government, 
 older than kings or thrones. 
 
 Later, at Frankfort, where was a great congrega¬ 
 tion of Huguenot Walloons, and where Jacob Leis- 
 ler was born, he made appeal for “the churches of 
 the Netherlands waiting under the cross,” whose em¬ 
 blem was the lily among thorns. At this time, thou- 
 
 82 
 
GUIDO DE BRAY 
 
 sands of Walloons, ancestors of many of the best 
 Americans of to-day, were in the Rhine valley. 
 
 The uprising for liberty in the Belgic Netherlands 
 in 1567, as in 1830, began in the Walloon country. 
 The cleaning out of the church edifices of idols and 
 images had aroused the wrath of the Spanish mon¬ 
 arch Philip II — the same who ordered the massacre 
 of the Huguenots in Florida, thinking he would 
 prevent the colonization of America, or the future 
 United States, by men who believed in progress. A 
 force of mercenaries was sent under Noircarmes to 
 Valenciennes, where lived Guido de Bray, “ the most 
 pestilential preacher” in Spanish eyes. 
 
 The special offense of this ancient and beautiful 
 city, founded by the Emperor Valentinian, was that 
 its citizens had refused to have quartered on them 
 a garrison of mercenaries in Spanish pay. When the 
 citizens further claimed the privilege of free worship 
 as a right, there arose a storm of fury in Madrid at 
 the Escurial, and in Brussels, where the regent Mar¬ 
 garet lived. 
 
 The story of siege and assault, after the cannon 
 had knocked the city to pieces, on Palm Sunday, 
 March 23, 1567, is brief. “The chimes, which during 
 the siege had been playing Marot’s psalms, hap¬ 
 pened that morning to be sounding forth from every 
 belfry the twenty-second Psalm: ‘ My God, My God, 
 why hast thou forsaken me?’ ” It was the carillon of 
 crucifixion. After the orgy of slaughter by sword, 
 the two leaders, Guido de Bray and Peregrine la 
 
 83 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Grange, were arrested. From prison they were 
 pushed off the ladder, even while speaking to the 
 crowd, and swung in air. They died in the body, to 
 live in the hearts of thousands who helped to make 
 America. 
 
 In the origin and development of that era in the 
 Netherlands, which the men of one obedience call 
 the 4 ‘Troubles” and those of the other “The War 
 for Independence,” the Walloon provinces were the 
 first to revolt against the despotism of abused power 
 in Church and State, the first to be stripped of their 
 population by flight, and the first to be forced into 
 reacceptance of the Spanish yoke. 
 
 In January, 1579, the nobles in Artois, Hainault, 
 Cambrai, and Walloon Flanders formed the Union 
 of Arras, which stipulated that their true aim was to 
 preserve the papal religion and uphold the author¬ 
 ity of the King of Spain. This action, which meant 
 secession from the States-General, was done against 
 the protests of that body, which insisted that it was 
 first necessary to “expel the cruel tyrant and com¬ 
 mon enemy of all the Belgic race.” 
 
 Nevertheless, a few patriots in the free Walloon 
 cities continued the struggle for freedom of con¬ 
 science and of resistance to the Spanish tyrant. The 
 last local revolt in the Walloon provinces was led by 
 Jean de Conde. From him and his brother Allard are 
 descended most of the Condes and Candees in the 
 United States. A descendant Jean, or John Cond6, 
 settled near Boston, Massachusetts, in 1639. The 
 
 84 
 
GUIDO DE BRAY 
 
 exodus from Belgic Land, begun in 1544, had con¬ 
 tinued with scarcely an interruption until 1585. 
 
 What were the facts underlying this Union of Ar¬ 
 ras, which virtually closes the story of the Huguenot 
 Walloons in Belgic Land? 
 
 It was wholly the work of nobles and prelates, who 
 dominated in a land from which the best people, or 
 probably ninety per cent, had fled, leaving only a 
 scanty population of peasants, who had little or 
 nothing to say about the acts of their superiors. The 
 final and formal reconciliation with Spain took place 
 May 15, 1579, and for over two centuries Belgic 
 Land became the private property of the Austrians 
 and Spaniards, and “the cockpit of Europe.” 
 
 In January of the year 1579, the seven north¬ 
 ern provinces formed the Union of Utrecht. With 
 “freedom of religion for all men” — within their 
 homes and in their sacred edifices — with welcome 
 and shelter given to people of every creed and 
 clime, the brilliant career — not of “Holland,” but 
 of the Republic of the United Netherlands — began. 
 Not only in its early years, especially from 1544 to 
 1570, but from England in 1605 and later, when 
 James I persecuted Dissenters, and from Germany, 
 from 1618 to 1648, the Republic received thousands 
 of Walloon refugees, giving to the world an inspiring 
 example of tolerance. 
 
 What kinds of people and varieties of human¬ 
 ity were left in the southern Netherlands, after the 
 Union of Arras, was clearly discerned in that series of 
 
 85 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 devastating campaigns called the Thirty Years' War, 
 from 1616 to 1648. Few bodies of soldiery ever ex¬ 
 ceeded, in sheer brutality and mere wantonness of 
 butchery and destruction, the Austrian army, which 
 was composed largely of non-Huguenot Walloons, 
 led by John Tzerclas Tilly. This man, born in Bra¬ 
 bant, proved himself a diligent pupil of such masters 
 of savage warfare as Alva and Requescens. Succeed¬ 
 ing Wallenstein, he stormed Magdeburg, May 10, 
 1631. “The unheard-of atrocities which he allowed 
 the Croats and Walloons of his army to perpetrate, 
 on this occasion, have affixed to his otherwise high 
 reputation a foul blot, uneffaced by all the cosmetics 
 of his numerous apologists. . . . On May 14 he made a 
 solemn entry into the city [and] attended the cele¬ 
 bration of a Te Deum in the cathedral.” 
 
CHAPTER X : 
 
 THE CHURCH UNDER THE CROSS 
 
 Many are the emblems of divine grace and help to 
 human character, and of “the faith once delivered 
 to the saints” — whether as tried and purified in 
 the fires of persecution, or stainless and white amid 
 worldliness. 
 
 In one sense, even the catacombs of Rome are as 
 an art gallery, rich in the treasures of early Christian 
 thought and feeling. Yet after such crude realistic 
 illustration, which was chiefly mural, Christianity 
 emerged from the caves and dens of the earth, into 
 the open sunlight, first of toleration and then of free¬ 
 dom. Then, out of Christian faith and feeling, grew 
 a new set of symbols. The mediaeval ages gave ex¬ 
 pression to inward emotions, in art on canvas, in 
 sculpture, carving, mosaic, and adornment in gold 
 and colors, while from architecture — mother and 
 nurse of all the arts — was born the Gothic cathe¬ 
 dral. 
 
 Some of these edifices of aspiration and hope rose 
 into glory on wings of beauty. Others, well called 
 “frozen music,” sang a hallelujah chorus to the Cre¬ 
 ator. The church spire pointed men’s thoughts to 
 things higher than earth. Eternity seemed to take 
 visible form to men’s minds and “bring all heaven” 
 before their eyes. 
 
 87 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Europe was made beautiful, as never before, by 
 Christian art, that far excelled in charm both the 
 days of classic form and the splendors of Oriental 
 decoration; for, while the spirit and even the master¬ 
 pieces of genius in Babylon, Egypt, Greece, or Rome 
 were pagan and earthly, the soul of Gothic architec¬ 
 ture seemed to soar, like an eagle towards Heaven. 
 
 Yet still in the cerements of dogma and in the fet¬ 
 ters of human authority, the individual soul, at its 
 best, dwelt only in “dim religious light.” More¬ 
 over, as a sinister inheritance from the Jews, those 
 who claimed the monopoly of religion made this an 
 engine of government. They not only preached in¬ 
 tolerance as a duty, according to alleged divine com¬ 
 mand, but they reverted to the old methods of 
 Joshua in Canaan and Samuel in Israel, until they 
 outrivaled Mahomet and his methods of propagat¬ 
 ing the faith. 
 
 Instead of believing in the infallibility of holy per¬ 
 secutors, two of the founders of America, Roger 
 Williams and William Penn, taught that “whoever 
 is right, the persecutor is wrong.” 
 
 When the radiance of the recovered Holy Scrip¬ 
 tures, as in a new morning, broke over Europe, there 
 was erected even a nobler edifice. Though not made 
 with hands, it outshone in spiritual glory even the 
 visible grandeurs of St. Peter’s, or Rheims, or Ami¬ 
 ens. Invisible to the eye of flesh and blood, it was a 
 building of the Spirit, with the adornment of private 
 interpretation and beautiful with self-government. 
 
 88 
 
THE CHURCH UNDER THE CROSS 
 
 It incarnated the apostle’s word, “ Where the Spirit 
 of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 
 
 The believer’s earthly home became even more 
 lovely than the cathedral. After the manner of the 
 primitive Christians, there arose the reading of the 
 Bible, in the household and family worship, based on 
 the priesthood of believers, as authorized in the New 
 Testament. In church life, “the crowning fact, the 
 Kingliest act of freedom . . . the freeman’s vote,” be¬ 
 came law and custom. Even the common man could 
 see that in moral grandeur, self-government excelled 
 that from the stately chair of the bishop under “the 
 antique bowed roof.” In his approach, as invited 
 guest, to the “sacrament,” or oath of allegiance, at 
 the Lord’s Supper, and in direct prayer to the King of 
 kings and Lord of lords, Our Father in Heaven, the 
 glory of a private Christian could make ridiculous 
 the pomp of crowned emperors and ecclesiastics in 
 miters and millinery. 
 
 The rights of the true church member, guaran¬ 
 teed by the fundamental law of the Founder, as laid 
 down in the New Testament, emptied papal con¬ 
 claves and the centralized power by the river Tiber 
 of all meaning. The bulls of the papacy, the edicts of 
 autocrats, the mandates of kings touched him not. In 
 himself and in the congregation, the communion of 
 saints, he had not only the best rule of life, in self- 
 restraint, but also the surest safeguard of public or¬ 
 der and progress. Sweeping away the symbols, he 
 reached reality. Yet for him eternal vigilance was 
 
 89 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 the price of liberty, while keeping the middle path 
 between the libertine and the autocrat in religion. 
 
 By rejecting this reformed constitution of society 
 and casting out those who adopted it, France and 
 the Latin nations became great in many things, but 
 not in the path of that ordered freedom and self-gov¬ 
 ernment, which is even now uplifting all the nations 
 of the earth. France, in many ways the hero nation, 
 had to postpone, for nearly three centuries, the pos¬ 
 sibility of a republic and stable government. The 
 French Revolution was the reaction against centu¬ 
 ries of repression of mind and body. In our day, 
 France has confessed her mistake by giving equal 
 freedom to all cults, rectifying the mistake of centu¬ 
 ries, and accepting the Huguenot contention. 
 
 When driven from the old houses of worship in 
 the Netherlands, the Belgic Christians went into the 
 fields, where “hedge preaching” and psalm-singing 
 were the rule. Their churches were not made of 
 stone, decorated with art or graven by man’s device, 
 but were under the blue sky, where God “spread out 
 the heavens like a tent to dwell in.” Instead of but¬ 
 tressed walls, towers, and spires of stone, lifted up 
 towards the empyrean and which under the chisel 
 were made to blossom into beauty, they found 
 within their own souls the “little sanctuary” prom¬ 
 ised of God through the prophet of individual right, 
 Ezekiel, and confirmed by the Founder of their faith, 
 even though but two or three might gather in his 
 name. It was God, not the Church, nor its edifices, 
 
 90 
 
THE CHURCH UNDER THE CROSS 
 
 creeds, and ritual, that was, as they confessed, “the 
 overflowing Fountain of all good.” 
 
 So in place of imposing interiors, luxuriant with 
 tracery and adornment that feasted the eye, they 
 met on field and pasture to a richer feast for the soul. 
 They heard the good news of God in their own 
 tongue, and they sang the twenty-third, the nine¬ 
 tieth, and other psalms with a fervor born of their 
 own souls’ experience. Then, when they were driven, 
 by pike and cannon, like sheep before the wolves, 
 into foreign lands, or compelled to hide in caves and 
 dens of the earth, there blossomed out of the garden 
 of their souls rich flowers of thought, white lilies of 
 devotion, and, in daily life, even the more luxuriant 
 fruits of the spirit. 
 
 These we see revealed in the symbolism of lan¬ 
 guage and art. Less sensuous, but more appealing to 
 the spirit, was the new language that spoke to the 
 eye. There was never any divorce between Puritan¬ 
 ism and art, when that art was truth. The richest 
 bloom of the Netherlands soul, in color and on can¬ 
 vas, was when the Republic and Calvinism were in 
 their highest power. Rembrandt incarnated the 
 truth of the Reformed Walloon, Fleming, and Dutch 
 soul — the sublimation of Netherlands history. 
 
 No wonder that the chosen emblem of the perse¬ 
 cuted Walloons was “the lily among thorns,” for to 
 their purity of life even enemies bore witness. In all 
 lands and ages, whether he be Hebrew, Buddhist, or 
 Christian, the lustful and selfish man is angered even 
 
 9i 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 to fury, by the Puritan's holy life. Non-conformity 
 is as hateful to the sensual or to the slavish conform¬ 
 ist as to bigot, skeptic, or agnostic. Neither liber¬ 
 tine nor prelate loves to see the self-governed free¬ 
 man, who rules his passions, appetites, and beliefs. 
 Even in Buddhism — the religion of a fourth of the 
 human race — the conception of Amida, the man 
 who, having walked in the noble eightfold path of 
 virtue, has conquered himself, is one of the no¬ 
 blest. 
 
 Unchoked amid the thorns of sectarian hatred, 
 their own animal lusts, or the giddy pleasures of the 
 wanton and drunken, the white lily of Walloon faith 
 kept erect in heavenly purity, ever looking up to 
 God. Yet outwardly were the thorns, which lacer¬ 
 ated and with many, ended life. 
 
 This phase of the awful reality of persecution, 
 which hounded thousands to death, or, under allure¬ 
 ment, perverted the weak and discouraged, was 
 shadowed forth in their name as expressed in more 
 than one petition to their rulers for tolerance — 
 “The Churches of the Netherlands sitting (or wait¬ 
 ing) under the cross,” or, in brief, “The Church 
 under the Cross.” 
 
 Even more personal for the individual, as well as 
 showing constant dependence upon the Holy Spirit, 
 was the symbol, wrought in gold, and worn on the 
 breast, or often hung between the heart and the ar¬ 
 mor. It represented the celestial Dove, emblem of 
 the descent of the Spirit, as seen of John at the bap- 
 
 92 
 
THE CHURCH UNDER THE CROSS 
 
 tism of Jesus. This, the cross of Languedoc, in time 
 became the special badge of the Huguenots. In their 
 modern societies, their descendants keep alive, in 
 grateful appreciation, the stirring memories of the 
 past and cherish this symbol as a memorial of the 
 martyrs. For even in our land, against any corpora¬ 
 tion that would again unite Church and State, and 
 those enemies of religion who would break down all 
 rule, order, boundaries, and safeguards, the citizen 
 must ever be on his guard. “Eternal vigilance is the 
 price of liberty.” 
 
 The scattered groups of French-speaking Chris¬ 
 tians, especially in southern Belgic Land, were shep¬ 
 herded by two great organizers and preachers. One 
 of these was Peregrine la Grange, who galloped on 
 horseback to the great crowds in the fields, some¬ 
 times numbering twenty thousand, and signaling 
 the commencement of divine service by firing a pis¬ 
 tol in the air. This soldier of the cross, whose Chris¬ 
 tian name meant Pilgrim, was the Belgic Great 
 Heart in undaunted courage and tireless energy. 
 The other was Guido de Bray, who was more of a 
 teacher. He not only roused the conscience and emo¬ 
 tions of his audience, but he strengthened his follow¬ 
 ers to endure, by being able to give to every man 
 a reason for the hope within him. Both became 
 martyrs. 
 
 The first synods of the Walloon churches were 
 held secretly April 26, July 24, and October 5, at 
 Antwerp, in 1573. 
 
 93 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 What the dangers of the environment were is best 
 typified in the well-known picture of a real event, 
 painted by a modern Belgian artist. In Antwerp, 
 Franciscus Junius, afterwards professor in Leyden, 
 preached to his flock in a room on the walls of which 
 flickered the reflection of martyr fires in the square 
 below. Out doors, the Spanish Pilate and Caiaphas 
 worked together in planting the cross, and according 
 to the religion “established by law ” men were burn¬ 
 ing Christians, their fellow believers, alive. 
 
 In the honor and shame of martyrdom the gay 
 city of Brussels excelled even Antwerp, and thence 
 a great exodus into Germany of young monks, stu¬ 
 dents who had heard of Luther, their fellow Chris¬ 
 tian, began; for these seekers after truth were hun¬ 
 gry for soul food. Hence also the barrier of fire, 
 reared to keep in the refugees! In the public square 
 of Belgium’s City Beautiful, upon the two young 
 monks Esch and Voes was bestowed “the ruby 
 crown.” Luther immortalized their names in death¬ 
 less song. 
 
 In their chosen title itself, of “The Netherlands 
 churches which, sitting under the cross, are scattered 
 within and without the Netherlands,” is a volume of 
 history; for even the first National Synods or general 
 gatherings, in council and for organization, were 
 held in the lands of exile. At Wesel, on the Rhine, 
 where then lived as pastor the father of New Neth¬ 
 erlands first governor, Peter Minuit, the fugitives 
 gathered under the protection of the great Elector, 
 
 94 
 
THE CHURCH UNDER THE CROSS 
 
 Frederick William, in 1568. On the second occasion, 
 they met at Emden, in the North. In this German 
 town, later under the protection of the Dutch Re¬ 
 public, the Dutch States-General kept a garrison for 
 many years, and there the seven-striped flag, which 
 guaranteed liberty of conscience, flew to the breeze. 
 Even to-day, with its dikes and quaint buildings 
 with their gable ends to the street, Emden has an 
 appearance more Hollandish than German. 
 
 Both of these synods were national or general, or 
 literally catholic. Local or provincial synods were 
 later held regularly in the provinces of the northern 
 Netherlands, which, in 1579, were united in the Re¬ 
 public. Those who have read, in either Dutch or 
 English, the romance by van Lennep, entitled “The 
 Abduction,” will have a lively sense of the troubles 
 of a government in which the federal principle was 
 no stronger than under the American Articles of 
 Confederation. 
 
 In 1578, the grateful Walloons, with eloquent ora¬ 
 tions and fitting ceremonies, presented to the city of 
 Wesel two massive silver cups, decorated with the 
 figure of a pilgrim, that is, a Walloon, in token of the 
 hospitality enjoyed during more than thirty years. 
 Every American should see these memorials of grat¬ 
 itude. 
 
 In those days, in the very nature of the case, be¬ 
 cause of the terrible brute passions concealed under 
 the garb of religion, any moderate man, who stood 
 between the two fires and extremes and maintained 
 
 95 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 his poise, was apt to be suspected and slandered by 
 both parties. 
 
 It was for this reason that such a great-minded 
 patriot and Christian as William the Silent was so 
 bitterly assailed by both partisans. The Spaniard 
 called him a heretic, set a price on his head, and 
 kept unsleeping assassins under pay to murder him, 
 in which devilish enterprise they finally succeeded. 
 
 Yet hardly less bigotedwere someof the ex-monks, 
 who in turning their coats had become fanatical Cal¬ 
 vinists, who burned alive their former brothers of 
 the cell. These denounced the Father of his Country 
 as a traitor and a papist. Nevertheless, the Silent 
 One swerved not for a moment in his principle of 
 “No interference with conscience by the magis¬ 
 trate. n Besides William’s personal motto, “Tran¬ 
 quil amid the waves,” there was the necessity for 
 action laid on him by the hereditary mandate, “I 
 will maintain.” In this frame of mind, head, and 
 heart he lived and died. History now knows him as 
 one of the heroes of all time. “ He belongs to the 
 ages.” Not even English history, of which we who 
 inherit its traditions are so proud, in all its long 
 pageantry, has furnished one more worthy to be 
 called a spiritual ancestor of the United States, 
 than William the Silent. 
 
 Peter Dathenus, an ex-monk, was one of those 
 wonderful men about whom the British encyclopae¬ 
 dias are silent; for, as a rule, on topics of Netherlands 
 world-interest these insular works of reference are 
 
 96 
 
(From an engraving of 1572) 
 
 The Netherlands personified as Andromeda; the Prince as Perseus; Spain as the dragon. At the 
 
 right are the provinces with their coats-of-arms 
 
\ 
 
 
THE CHURCH UNDER THE CROSS 
 
 disgracefully defective. They ignore the men to 
 whom the Netherlands biographical dictionaries give 
 whole pages. Dathenus knew French, Dutch, and 
 German. He had fled to the city of Frankfort — that 
 oasis of freedom in a desert of persecution, which 
 nourished so many of the makers of America. It was 
 then crowded with refugees for conscience’ sake from 
 many lands, includingsomefromEngland. Hundreds 
 of these French-speakingpeopletook German names. 
 Here the future governor of New York, Jacob Leis- 
 ler, was born, his father, so tradition states, being a 
 Huguenot pastor. 
 
 Having sprung from the people, Dathenus knew 
 their mother speech and their moulds of thought, so 
 that he could both speak and write, as well as trans¬ 
 late, in a way that appealed to their hearts and feel¬ 
 ings. So, besides translating the Heidelberg Cate¬ 
 chism into Dutch, he put Marot’s version of the 
 psalms into the same tongue. These were set to 
 lively tunes and soon the whole Netherlands folk, 
 old and young, were singing Bible words. Though 
 a powerful preacher, Dathenus did more by song 
 than by sermon; for it is ever true, as Herrick said, 
 “A verse may find him who a sermon flies.” 
 
 Dathenus most probably presided at the Wesel 
 Synod of 1568, held the year after Alva and his 
 Spaniards had invaded Belgic Land. Of the fifty- 
 three names subscribed on the roll of attendance, 
 that of Dathenus stands first. Then follow the 
 names of Henry Modet, of Nyeveldt, whose psalms 
 
 97 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 in verse were in use in the Dutch church in London, 
 and of Philip Marnix de Aldegonde, whose name 
 is immortal in the history of the Republic. 
 
 It was decided at this Synod that Calvin’s Geneva 
 Catechism in French, should be used by the Wal¬ 
 loons, and the Heidelberg Catechism by the German 
 churches in the Republic. In the Church there were 
 to be four orders, those of minister, teacher, elder, 
 and deacon. Many copies of Calvin’s Catechism, of 
 the service book of worship, and of French Bibles 
 printed in Geneva were brought to America by the 
 Walloon pioneers, and some are still to be found in 
 the homes of their descendants. Marot’s and Dath- 
 enus’ versions of the psalms have been sung by mak¬ 
 ers of the United States during several generations, 
 and still reecho in hundreds of churches. 
 
 By the time that the first colony of Walloons was 
 ready in 1624 to start for America, their well-estab¬ 
 lished churches numbered over a hundred, twenty- 
 one then being in the Dutch Republic. All of these 
 were outside the southern or Spanish Netherlands, 
 though in the hiding places of dens and caves in the 
 home land a few groups of lovers of the Bible gath¬ 
 ered secretly. There were Walloons at Delfshaven 
 when the Pilgrims sailed away, but no known church 
 was there of Huguenot faith, until 1686, or long after¬ 
 wards. 
 
 In 1619 the great National Synod was held at 
 Dordrecht. At this “First Protestant Ecumenical 
 Council’’ — in describing which our Motley loses 
 
 98 
 
THE CHURCH UNDER THE CROSS 
 
 his judicial balance as a historian and yields to 
 subjective opinions and feelings — the Walloon 
 churches were well represented, and many of their 
 ablest and most eloquent pastors were present. Al¬ 
 though there were one hundred and nineteen dele¬ 
 gates from various countries, English, French, Ger¬ 
 man, etc., there was no trouble in all being under¬ 
 stood, during the fifty-seven sessions, for Latin was 
 then the common speech of all educated men. Among 
 those from England was the great Lancelot Andrewes, 
 who gave the literary gloss to that masterpiece of 
 translation, the English Bible; that is, the version 
 of 1611. 
 
 It was a just criticism, made at the time, that the 
 cast and Netherlands personnel of the Synod was 
 largely political. Indeed, this Synod was called by 
 government order. It was as much to decide an issue 
 of administration, as to settle a dogma. In short, it 
 was a stroke of policy and a method of propaganda 
 for the cause of federal union and the initiation of 
 American colonization, as much as for official ortho¬ 
 doxy. It was in every land the ruling idea of the age 
 to cover politics with the cloak of religion — a game 
 of practical politicians not yet wholly out of use. In 
 Motley’s version — which is more of a drama than a 
 history — his comments on this National Synod of 
 Dort approach caricature. 
 
 Carolus Nellius, pastor of the Walloon church of 
 Utrecht, made protest, saying that he could not see 
 why the Walloons and Remonstrants had not as 
 
 99 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 much right to dissent from this Dordrecht Synod, as 
 their forefathers had to dissent from the Council of 
 Trent. When Bogerman, the president of the Synod, 
 lost his temper and with angry gestures drove away 
 the condemned Arminians, Nellius said, “From this 
 injustice of the Synod I appeal to the throne of 
 Christ.” Even Prince Maurice, the radical Unionist 
 and relentless foe of Barneveldt and of secession, 
 who was the chief patron of the colonization of 
 America and protector of the Walloon emigrants, 
 was displeased at the violence of Bogerman. 
 
 The execution of Barneveldt, which quickly fol¬ 
 lowed, revealed the political animus lurking under 
 religious pretexts. Much Prince Maurice cared for 
 purity of doctrine, or for soundness in morals or reli¬ 
 gion ! Even to-day, while Barneveldt has his memo¬ 
 rial reared by the nation — the Queen leading in 
 subscription — Maurice still awaits such an honor 
 by a people who admired his abilities, while out¬ 
 raged by his private life. 
 
 In fact, throughout the whole history of the Re¬ 
 formed Church in the Netherlands, the influence of 
 the Walloon Christians was irenic and ever in the 
 line of moderation. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 IN THE LANDS OF EXILE 
 
 The story of the flight of the Flemings and Wal¬ 
 loons from the southern Netherlands, following the 
 invasion by the Duke of Alva, with his Spanish 
 army of men and women, who came like locusts to 
 devour, has often been told. In “ Belgium: The Land 
 of Art,” I have tried to picture the scene. Alva has 
 left in Belgium a name of eternal detestation. Even 
 during his lifetime, they tumbled his self-reared 
 statue into the mire. After plentiful pounding with 
 hammers, they cast it into the flames. 
 
 On his approach in 1567, which meant not only 
 devastation, but falsehood, treachery, and brutality 
 in high office — done in the name of God and the 
 holy centralized Church — depopulation began. 
 
 Even critical authors vary as to the census of the 
 great dispersion. Once more the “fleemings,” or 
 Flemings, fled. Once again those called foreigners, 
 or “Walloons,” became aliens in lands afar. The 
 continent, the near Britain and the distant Norse 
 isles, far-off Russia, and the two continents below 
 the equator received the fugitives, who refused to 
 sell their convictions or their consciences. 
 
 Among the very first to give welcome and shelter 
 was England. The Dutch church at Austin Friars 
 in London, “the Church in the Crypt” at Canter- 
 
 101 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 bury, and the Walloon church at Norwich, are the 
 oldest among the Reformed churches in England. 
 Yet a score or more congregations of Walloons, 
 whether so-called or termed “ French, ” were gath¬ 
 ered in the south and east of England long before the 
 arrival of the Huguenots of France, in 1685 and 
 later. At Southampton, Colchester, and in Thread- 
 needle Street in London were flourishing Walloon 
 churches, and in England more than one Synod was 
 held. The records of some churches extend back to 
 1568, the first year after the great flight. The Acts of 
 Parliament relating to the Denization and Natural¬ 
 ization for these aliens in England, from 1509 to 
 1603, form an interesting chapter in the history of 
 civilization. 
 
 Yet the number of Walloons who found shelter in 
 the British Isles was but a fraction, compared with 
 that of those who sought temporary or permanent 
 homes in the northern or Dutch Netherlands. Un¬ 
 der the Republic’s flag of freedom, beneath the folds 
 of which they found protection, thousands of them 
 enlisted to serve and fight for their new Fatherland. 
 It was under this flag, more numerously and oftener 
 than any other, that the Huguenot Walloons fought 
 — thousands of them making “the supreme sacri¬ 
 fice,” in the hope of winning for the world and for 
 themselves a larger freedom and a higher obedience. 
 
 He misreads history who imagines that the Ref¬ 
 ormation movement meant a struggle for liberty 
 only. One Netherlands professor has even written a 
 
 102 
 
IN THE LANDS OF EXILE 
 
 monograph entitled “Calvinism or Libertinism?” 
 Some writers still in the mediaeval obedience imagine 
 that the Reformed Churchmen sought only to “raise 
 discords in Church and State,” and to cast off all 
 restraints and service, in order to enjoy license. 
 
 The reality is at the antipodes of such a notion. 
 The men who made the Bible their sole guide and 
 authority sought freedom, not as the indolent slave 
 escapes from labor, but as men taught of God’s 
 Word, as they believed it, in order to submit joy¬ 
 fully to a Higher Master and to take on gladly the 
 yoke of greater service. They left a lower loyalty 
 for a higher, as all real men do when enlightened. 
 In proof of this was the universally acknowledged 
 higher ethical tenor of life among the Huguenots 
 and the superiority of their economics and material 
 fruitfulness. This was as manifest as mathematics. 
 It was demonstrable in visible production, when 
 those who prayed to saints and counted beads gave 
 but two hundred days in the year to work, while the 
 Huguenots devoted three hundred days to toil with 
 brain and hands. 
 
 Thousands of Walloons served in the armies, first 
 of William the Silent and then of the Republic, when 
 formed in 1571. The terrible Sea Beggars were 
 largely from Belgic Land. Treslong, captor of Brill, 
 the Lexington of the Dutch war of independence, 
 and Boisot, the rescuer of Leyden, were both of 
 them Walloons. At the siege of Rouen, by Henry 
 IV, eight regiments were Walloon; while in 1688, un- 
 
 103 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 der William III, in England and Ireland, Huguenots 
 made up half his army. After helping to defeat the 
 traitor king James II, many of the veterans of Wil¬ 
 liam III remained in Ireland, introducing the crafts 
 of lace- and linen-making and in many ways im¬ 
 proving Ulster and North Ireland. Thousands of the 
 “Scotch Irish” of to-day are descended from Belgic 
 and French Huguenots, and bear their names, more 
 or less altered to suit foreign ears and tongues. The 
 registers of the French Conformed Churches of St. 
 Patrick and St. Mary in Dublin — two among those 
 Walloon churches that became Episcopal — were 
 published in 1893. 
 
 Until the northern Netherlanders had a national 
 flag, they used the three colors of the prince, orange, 
 white, and blue; which, after 1581, became the na¬ 
 tional emblem, but later by law was made the red, 
 white, and blue. There were, of course, the arms and 
 heraldry of cities blazoned on the flags which waved 
 in the breezes; for the evolution of the Dutch Re¬ 
 public was in the line of unifying many city repub¬ 
 lics into a nation. It is true that, when compared 
 with the federal system of the United States of the 
 twentieth century, theirs was a weak federalism; 
 but, such as it was, it served to unite the seven north¬ 
 ern provinces. Nearly all our American mottoes and 
 war cries, such as, “No taxation without representa¬ 
 tion,” “E pluribus unum,” “The Union must and 
 shall be preserved,” “Union makes strength,” etc., 
 were heard first in the Netherlands. 
 
 104 
 
IN THE LANDS OF EXILE 
 
 The name of “The Church under the Cross,” 
 thus chosen, found expression even when the perse¬ 
 cuted Belgians called themselves “Beggars,” and, 
 driven off the land, took to the sea. The first flag 
 raised by them was white, with a red cross, to signify 
 their homelessness, desolation, and sufferings; mean¬ 
 while making the sea very unsafe for Spanish vessels. 
 
 When Count Louis, brother of the great William, 
 took up arms against Spain, six of these flags were 
 presented to him. They bore mottoes in Latin, 
 meaning “Now or never,” “Regain or die.” After 
 1570, the Beggars of the Sea, many of whom were 
 Walloons, flew the colors of William and also the 
 city flags of the captains. Yet the Netherlanders had 
 their grim jokes. Most comical, as well as defiant, 
 were the broad red pennants flying from every ship. 
 On these were painted ten pennies. This was in de¬ 
 rision of Alva’s tax of the tenth penny, laid on all 
 business transactions, from which the Beggars were 
 determined to deliver their countrymen. 
 
 When Leyden, then full of Walloons, was in course 
 of being relieved, the people not only raised flags on 
 the walls, but fastened these bits of bunting to the 
 highest points of the windmills, in defiance of the 
 Spaniards and in faith of ultimate victory. This 
 cheered the Walloon leader, Admiral Louis de Boisot, 
 of the oncoming cannon boats, manned by Zeeland- 
 ers and Walloons who were the rescuers. These des¬ 
 perate fellows, every one of whom wore the silver 
 crescent, inscribed “Better Turk than Pope” (or 
 
 105 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Papist), read the signal, “Leyden still holds out.” 
 They pushed their boats on through the flood that had 
 poured through the broken dikes, and they finally 
 won. The place where they stepped out of their 
 boats, to throw up loaves and herring to the starving 
 Leydeners, on October 3, 1574, is still marked; and 
 near the sluice and bridge stands the House of Ar¬ 
 chives, in which are so many documents relating to 
 the Pilgrim Fathers, founders of Massachusetts, and 
 to the Walloons, founders of New York and the 
 Middle States. These, in the total, outnumber all 
 others elsewhere which are dated before 1620. 
 
 In the Dutch Republic was the original home of 
 the “flag,” as Americans understand the word and 
 its association of ideas. Not only the name itself, 
 but almost the entire vocabulary in English, is de¬ 
 rived from the Dutch. The abundant words in other 
 languages are as reflectors casting light upon this as¬ 
 sertion. In their structure, use, and true meaning 
 they show that the ideas underlying these symbols of 
 feudal and royal rule, instead of nationality, were 
 different from those that lay at the foundation of the 
 national naval flag of the Dutch Republic, which 
 consisted of seven parallel red and white stripes. Al¬ 
 most for the first time in history, this emblem of sov¬ 
 ereignty stood, not for kings, emperors, individuals, 
 or local rulers, or even for provincial or municipal 
 entities or persons, but for states. 
 
 In a word, the idea of the Dutch flag was federal, 
 not feudal. It meant equality and unity of the prov- 
 
 106 
 
IN THE LANDS OF EXILE 
 
 inces, that were federated out of seven states partic¬ 
 ular into the one States-General, or the republic 
 formed in 1579 and declared independent in 1581. 
 “Staff/’ “bunt,” “bunting,” “fly,” “halyards,” 
 “stripe,” “held” (not canton) are all Dutch. 
 “Stripe,” signifying a band of color, was not in the 
 English language before the word having this signif¬ 
 ication was borrowed from the Dutch. That is the 
 reason why, in the English Bible, Joseph’s coat of 
 many “stripes,” and the Princess Tamar’s “striped” 
 skirt, of which the Hebrew tells us, are rendered by 
 the term “colors” — which does not fill out the idea 
 of Israel’s narrators. The wimples, pennants, dra- 
 peaux, pavilions, ensigns, banners, colors, etc., etc., 
 of feudal or royal captains, or men-at-arms, were not 
 true flags, in the modern sense of the word, certainly 
 not in that of the Dutch naval flag, or of the Ameri¬ 
 can Stars and Stripes — ideas and symbols which to¬ 
 day have been copied by scores of states and nations. 
 
 We may well ask how these people, the ancestors 
 of so many of us, felt when torn from their homes 
 and ancestral surroundings and they found them¬ 
 selves aliens in foreign lands. 
 
 Does a prisoner think of freedom, or an exile of 
 home? Long before the Pilgrim Fathers arrived, 
 Leyden was a shelter for many homesick souls from 
 Plainault, Namur, and the southern Belgic provinces. 
 Stripped and impoverished, those of both the first 
 and later generation, fugitives from the Spanish ter¬ 
 ror, were thankful for the welcome accorded them 
 
 107 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 and the free opportunities offered for “life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness.” Yet they hoped on 
 and hoped ever to return to their old cities and vil¬ 
 lages. Like the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers, they 
 suffered the same pangs of homesickness. With them 
 were the same heartaches, in yearning, for years, to 
 see once again the land they loved. The woes of the 
 English exiles, as told by Bradford, have become a 
 world-story. Written as a prose epic, in a classic 
 book and oft recounted, they are known to all; but 
 the sorrows and privations of the first founders of 
 our Middle States were none the less real, while 
 vastly greater in both numbers and length of time. 
 
 A second swarming from the old hive — rather 
 the pushing out of the nest by new masters — took 
 place under Louis XIV, even of the Walloons, from 
 soil that was then French, but of old Belgic, after 
 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. These fled 
 again, with the French Huguenots, into England, 
 Germany, Denmark, Russia, the West Indies, South 
 Africa, and South America, and the Old House of 
 Hospitality, the Dutch Republic. Yet one and all 
 cherished during their lifetime the dream of again 
 regaining the home of their fathers. They ever 
 trusted that the Great Powers would intervene in 
 their behalf and restore to them their farms and 
 cities. 
 
 When in 1697 the diplomatists gathered around 
 the green baize table at Ryswick — now a railway 
 station in South Holland, between Delft and The 
 
 108 
 
IN THE LANDS OF EXILE 
 
 Hague — to settle terms of peace after war, the Hu¬ 
 guenots sent piteous petitions, but they were ignored. 
 To-day on the spot where stood the House of Disap¬ 
 pointment, no trace is visible of either the business 
 which made truce, rather than peace, or of the sor¬ 
 row of those who died in despair. 
 
 Again at Utrecht, in 1713, the petitioners for 
 home, freedom, justice, and the rights of conscience 
 appeared, only to be ignored or shown the door. The 
 British masters of statecraft were then more eager ap¬ 
 parently to win gold and prestige from the African 
 slave trade, and to outwit Spaniards in man-steal¬ 
 ing, than to help poor white refugees. What seem to 
 us the almost idiotic wars of “the Spanish Succes¬ 
 sion,’ ’ were made to cease; but British covetousness 
 was confirmed in its “ rights ”(?). The traders, who 
 were then dominant in Parliament, were guaranteed 
 the virtual monopoly of the capture and sale of hu¬ 
 man beings. Queen Anne, however, by her personal 
 intervention, secured the release from the French 
 galleys of several score slaves who had held to their 
 faith. One of these wrote the “Confessions of a 
 Protestant.” 
 
 Happily in later time, the British national con¬ 
 science was aroused against this iniquity. Then the 
 ethically belated Americans became the target of 
 protest and contempt by the English, because of 
 the “peculiar institution” of slavery continued on 
 Southern soil, when cotton culture demanded an 
 ever enlarging area. 
 
 109 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE WALLOONS ENRICH SWEDEN 
 
 Not least among the countries that have sent their 
 sons and daughters to build up the American Com¬ 
 monwealth is the land of Gustavus Adolphus. The 
 Swedes began a colony on the Delaware in 1655. In 
 their more recent and vastly larger contingent of im¬ 
 migrants, who have helped to settle the great North- 
 • west, their record of illiteracy is the smallest among 
 those who seek America. 
 
 Besides their intelligence, the Swedes as a whole 
 quickly become very good Americans. Never great 
 psychologists, or students of mental science, they 
 have excelled in the study of nature, and no na¬ 
 tion has surpassed them in the number, proportion¬ 
 ately, of masters in the domain of science and me¬ 
 chanics. Even their folk songs praise the beauty of 
 nature. They seldom deal with the varied passions 
 and records of humanity, its glories and its foi¬ 
 bles. This trait is discernible even in their names. 
 Whereas the English took theirs from trades and 
 occupations, and the Dutch from places, those of 
 Sweden reflect, in their form, the mountains, 
 streams, trees, and flowers of their native land. 
 
 Before the Spanish invasion of 1567, even as early 
 as 1560, Walloons had come into Sweden by invita¬ 
 tion of Gustavus Wasa, to help in shipbuilding and 
 
 no 
 
THE WALLOONS ENRICH SWEDEN 
 
 other industries. One became the private tutor of 
 the young prince Eric XIV. In fact, it was mainly 
 through these Belgic Walloons that the princes and 
 rulers of Sweden became so deeply interested in the 
 “ Reformed” religion. Charles IX,who died in 1612, 
 the father of the great Gustavus Adolphus, was es¬ 
 pecially earnest in his inquiries and studies of the 
 Calvinistic side of the Reformation. In time, many 
 of these Walloons wrote their names as Waller — 
 whence hundreds of families in English-speaking 
 countries. 
 
 We need not then be surprised that the Walloon, 
 besides being teacher, soldier, shipbuilder, unceas¬ 
 ing in his industry, showed himself, when in Sweden, 
 a wonder-worker in metals. In fact he created a 
 new art in the mastery of iron. 
 
 Not only did the Walloons “improve the iron in¬ 
 dustry,” but they are looked upon as the founders of 
 the whole system of metallurgy; since, before their 
 coming, the art of refining iron and other metals had 
 scarcely begun. Among their ten thousand descend¬ 
 ants in the Sweden of our day is the ennobled fam¬ 
 ily of de Geer. In the royal patent granted to the 
 founder, it is expressly stated that “he had intro¬ 
 duced the art of casting iron cannon [when formerly 
 only brass had been used], of making bars of malle¬ 
 able iron, of manufacturing all kinds of arms, of 
 building at great expense many factories for brass 
 and iron work, and that he imported many skilled 
 workmen and taught our inhabitants [Swedes] the 
 
 hi 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 secrets of the iron industry.” Even the popular his¬ 
 tories tell of this economic re-creation of Sweden by 
 a Walloon. 
 
 The story of how all this came about reads like a 
 romance. Ten years after Alva’s invasion of Belgic 
 Land, and when under a Spanish king and priestcraft 
 life to the Christians of the Reformed faith had be¬ 
 come hardly worth living, Louis de Geer, of Brabant, 
 became a refugee. He sold his possessions and sent 
 the money to Amsterdam. Then, traveling secretly 
 with his wife, eight children, and a loyal servant, he 
 was able to reach Maastricht, the last station within 
 the then Spanish Netherlands. There he rented a 
 river boat, used to freight peat down the Maas 
 (Meuse) River to Holland. In the boat, back of the 
 black bricks of this vegetable fuel, he arranged a 
 little compartment for his family. It was so com¬ 
 pletely hidden from the inspectors on the frontier 
 that he got safely across the border into the Dutch 
 Republic. Stepping on land, they all, father, 
 mother, children, and servant, fell on their knees and 
 in the new Fatherland devoutly thanked God for 
 their escape and their freedom. In Amsterdam, de 
 Geer started a bank, organized a business house, and 
 made a fortune. To his estate and to the headship of 
 the house, the son Louiis (1587-1662) succeeded and 
 in 1617 negotiated a large loan to finance the wars of 
 Gustavus Adolphus. 
 
 Walloons had previously reached Sweden, and a 
 relative, named de Besche, called the attention of de 
 
 112 
 
THE WALLOONS ENRICH SWEDEN 
 
 Geer to the industrial opportunity in Sweden, where 
 skilled labor and educated engineers were lacking 
 for the iron mines. Seizing the opportunity, Louis 
 went to Sweden in 1627 and there made large invest¬ 
 ments. The Government gave to de Geer the plant 
 at Finspong, which had thus far yielded little; but 
 under de Geer’s management it became more profit¬ 
 able than most gold mines. 
 
 Into Sweden de Geer brought hundreds of skilled 
 Walloon miners and metal-workers — an enterprise 
 which the Government gladly encouraged. Several 
 of his children settled permanently in the kingdom 
 and were ennobled as barons, as was also de Besche. 
 Not only were the de Geers of Sweden a family 
 highly respected — hundreds in time bearing the 
 name — but from them arose many scientific men, 
 famous for their attainments. The recently pub¬ 
 lished book on the ancestry of the de Geers shows, in 
 sumptuous form, Sweden’s great debt to these men. 
 
 In the mining and iron industry of our day, names 
 of manifestly Walloon or French origin are common 
 in the directories. This seems to show that, in Swe¬ 
 den, it was not at first so common a custom among 
 the refugees to change their patronyms, as in other 
 lands of asylum, and only recently a popular book 
 has been published in Sweden which gives more 
 details, as follows: 
 
 Walloons came from Belgium during the seventeenth 
 century, to improve the Swedish iron industry. They 
 settled near the great iron works in East Gothaland, Up- 
 
 113 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 land, Varmland, and Bergslagen. They are represented 
 mostly by a dark type [as compared with the florid 
 blondes], are for the most part of short stature, thickset 
 growth, and have broad faces. They have intermarried 
 among themselves and partly with Swedes, and owing to 
 this a great many types have arisen. The descendants of 
 these Walloons have now spread themselves over the 
 whole country. 
 
 At first, besides having their own ministry, teach¬ 
 ers, and physicians, they did not marry with the 
 native Swedes. It was nearly a century before they 
 ceased to be “ a peculiar people.” In modern Sweden, 
 nearly four hundred names of Walloon origin, some of 
 them quite common in America, have been traced out. 
 
 What is true of the Swedish is equally so of the 
 American composite. “The melting pot” reveals a 
 similar ingot. Those who have lived in the six East¬ 
 ern States, still spoken of as “New England,” might 
 in like manner describe the very varied physiog¬ 
 nomy of American citizens, in that section of the 
 United States, who are descended from ancestors 
 who began at Plymouth to mingle Walloon and 
 French blood with the English, Welsh, Scotch, and 
 Dutch strains. These were efficient in land east 
 of the Hudson, from 1620 to 1776, in altering the 
 legendary, but very much mixed “Anglo-Saxon”; or 
 rather the inherited Celto-Norse-Frisian-Teutonic 
 type of face and form in the British Isles. Certainly 
 the swarthy, brunette coloring of the Walloon is 
 easily discernible in some parts of the United States. 
 
 Such, at least, is the impression of one who has 
 
 114 
 
THE WALLOONS ENRICH SWEDEN 
 
 studied the origins and influences operating in the 
 six Eastern States, and who, in addition to seven 
 years of residence in Boston, in which are all of the 
 rural and urban types, visited leisurely the regions 
 from Eastport to Greenwich, and from the Canadian 
 border to Long Island Sound. 
 
 One recent Swedish writer has described the Wal¬ 
 loons in Sweden as having in most cases dark com¬ 
 plexion and brown eyes. They are open and free in 
 conversation, keen in judgment, and apt to learn. 
 They are very touchy in disposition, and often ap¬ 
 pear a little bit stiff and formal in manner. They 
 dress well and keep their houses scrupulously clean. 
 They are very high-minded and stand above most 
 people in cultural tact. 1 
 
 In his book “The Cradle of Pennsylvania,’’ Mr. 
 T. W. Balch has awarded to the Swedes the honor of 
 first establishing homes in the Keystone State. Be¬ 
 fore these, however, were the four Walloon brides 
 and their husbands, married on the colonizing ship 
 New Netherland, in 1624. They first saw the future 
 site of the city of Philadelphia, and their homes were 
 on an island in the Delaware River, probably near 
 Trenton. They later lived on the soil of Delaware — 
 which owes its primal existence as a colony and its 
 sovereignty as a state to the Dutch discovery, claim, 
 settlement, and occupation. 
 
 Nevertheless, to the Swedes we must award the 
 honors of inaugurating the commonwealth named 
 1 E. Hartman, in Nordisk Familjebok . 
 
 115 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 after William Penn. The proofs of their life and 
 work on the soil are still in notable evidence to any 
 one who, like the writer, has lived on ground which 
 they occupied within the southern limits of the 
 Quaker city. On February 6, 1909, in the presence 
 of the municipal dignitaries and the representatives 
 of historical and patriotic societies, American and 
 Swedish, a superb bronze tablet, presented by the 
 Society of Colonial Wars, was unveiled at the City 
 Hall in Philadelphia. 
 
 No plan for colonizing America was conceived in 
 nobler thought, or dedicated to a higher proposition 
 than this of Gustavus Adolphus and his chancellor 
 Oxenstierna — both among the great men of all time. 
 In the height of his victories, in northern Germany, 
 over the armies of absolutism in Church and State, 
 this great-minded ruler, at Nuremberg, in 1632, 
 drew up a recommendation of this colony as “the 
 jewel of his kingdom.” Oxenstierna, looking even 
 further into the future, declared that the results of 
 the colonization of America by men of the North 
 would be “favorable to all Christendom, to Europe, 
 and to the whole world.” 
 
 Death on the field of battle arrested the project 
 for a time, for the successor of Charles being Chris¬ 
 tina his daughter, then but six years old, the enter¬ 
 prise was postponed. Her name, in slightly altered 
 form, is to-day borne, not only by the town on 
 the Delaware, Christiana, but by a half dozen other 
 places in the United States. 
 
 116 
 
THE WALLOONS ENRICH SWEDEN 
 
 Fitly the Swedes, who during the nineteenth 
 century so largely helped to people the old North¬ 
 western States, have proposed to celebrate in 1923, 
 with a voyage across the Atlantic in a ship of an¬ 
 cient model, the first sailing of their countrymen to 
 America. 
 
 Here we may ask: What was the secret of the rela¬ 
 tive industrial superiority, greater general prosper¬ 
 ity, and continuing economic power of the Walloons 
 and the Huguenots? Uprooted from their homes, 
 and compelled to live in strange lands, with the dis¬ 
 advantages of climate and soil, why were such tri¬ 
 umphs in civilization wrought by them in both 
 Europe and America? 
 
 Two factors from the first were potent to make 
 fresh contributions to civilization and human prog¬ 
 ress. 
 
 The first was the joyousness of the new form of 
 religion, which in itself was but a renewal of that 
 which, in the morning of Christianity, made the 
 faces even of slaves to shine, filled souls with light 
 and brought new raptures, making life vastly more 
 worth living than ever before. This joy was in 
 itself creative. 
 
 It is not merely steam, electricity, and commerce 
 that have made a new industrial world, but a new 
 kind of man, who was ever passing on the torch to 
 higher achievements. None illustrated this truth 
 more than those Walloons who, exiled for conscience’ 
 sake, went forth, not weeping, or sitting idly at the 
 
 117 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 fountains of the past, but with creative joy in their 
 eyes, to new visions and to new achievements. 
 
 In fact very much the same story of the creative 
 industry of the Walloons in the British Isles, Ger¬ 
 many, the northern Netherlands, Sweden, South 
 Africa, and the West Indies, might be told of their 
 fellow believers everywhere. In Denmark, for ex¬ 
 ample, in Copenhagen and at Fredericia, the still ex¬ 
 isting Reformed churches of these places give honor 
 in their histories to “the Walloon period.” In Swit¬ 
 zerland, both the voluntary refugees and the exiles 
 forced out of the Belgic Netherlands, under Alva and 
 Parma, finding creed, church order, and language 
 already like their own, promptly united themselves 
 with the Reformed congregations. Thus the Swiss 
 churches were notably reinforced. In the great mural 
 monument of the Reformation, several rods long, 
 recently erected in Geneva, on part of what was the 
 old city wall, but newly faced with stone suitable for 
 sculpture in bas-relief, one may read the pictorial his¬ 
 tory of the Reformation, particularly as shaped by 
 John Calvin. Here the Swiss, the English, the Amer¬ 
 ican, the Dutch, German, and other ethnic phases of 
 the recovery of the history of New Testament Chris¬ 
 tianity have been worthily told by the chisel of the 
 sculptor and the pen of the historian. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 THE FLOATING PURGATORY ' 
 
 The life of all animate beings, including man, is one 
 of hope and fear. 
 
 For centuries in the litanies of Christendom arose 
 this petition: “From the fury of the Norsemen, 
 Good Lord, deliver us.’' Such a prayer was for de¬ 
 liverance from pagan savages, worshipers of idols, 
 believers in gods that were but magnified men, with 
 the exaggerated passions of the lair and the jungle. 
 
 From the era of “the wars of religion” so-called, 
 the prayers of those who lived in fear of the Spanish 
 Inquisition and the French galleys were put up in 
 terror of Christians so-called. To them “the King’s 
 religion” meant a suppression of all that made life 
 desirable. 
 
 In America, it was the dread of being “chained to 
 the oar” in the galleys of slavery and in a floating 
 hell, ordained by His Most Christian Majesty, Louis 
 XIV, that made Jacob Leisler, the sleepless enemy 
 of this royal slave driver, so popular in New York. 
 It was the strong probability of consignment to a liv¬ 
 ing death in the galleys that struck terror to the Wal¬ 
 loons and Huguenots on Manhattan, Staten and 
 Long Islands, and in Schenectady, New Paltz, New 
 Rochelle, and other settlements, and made them, in 
 
 119 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 overwhelming majority, welcome Leisler as a cham¬ 
 pion. 
 
 The galley was a type of ship efficient and valued, 
 especially in the Mediterranean, from very ancient 
 days. It was in use also in the English Channel and 
 4 ‘the narrow seas,” down to the middle of the eight¬ 
 eenth century. Then, along with the “fire ship,” it 
 vanished from naval warfare. From one to two 
 hundred feet long and from thirty to sixty feet wide, 
 propelled by oars, it could be used as a ram, as a 
 floating battery, or to run aside and board an en¬ 
 emy’s ship. A galley was of slight use out on the 
 ocean, but for coast defense and the “narrow” seas, 
 it was formidable, either for menace and the alarm 
 of coasts, or for the crash of action. When can¬ 
 non were invented and mounted on the forward 
 deck, the power and efficiency of the galley were not 
 to be despised. 
 
 Inside and below, chained by the leg to the hard 
 seats, the rowers sat, six in a line, working the oars. 
 These were fifty feet long, poised on a pivot, thirty- 
 seven feet of their length being outside and thirteen 
 feet within the ship. The slaves, kept in rhythmic 
 toil, were directed by the officer’s whistle. The knot¬ 
 ted lash was always ready for welts and blood, but 
 even without that instrument of torture, men often 
 collapsed and died at their task. After each scourg¬ 
 ing, the stripes and bloody flesh, opened by the 
 rope’s end, were washed with salt and vinegar. This 
 caused excruciating agony, but it tended to speedier 
 
 120 
 
From an old French Print 
 
THE FLOATING PURGATORY 
 
 healing. The corpses were at once flung into the sea. 
 The average life of a rower was ten years. The doc¬ 
 umentary history and the literature and narratives 
 of those who suffered in the galleys show that the 
 conditions and horrors under the system were not 
 radically different from those of the Middle Passage 
 in the African slave trade. 
 
 The slaves, Christian and Mahometan, in the 
 rowing crews, were of a very miscellaneous descrip¬ 
 tion. Many were Turks captured by the Levantine 
 corsairs, sold in the slave markets of Italy and 
 bought by the French. 
 
 Beside these foreigners, were those native French 
 criminals condemned in the courts under His Most 
 Christian Majesty, by the Inquisitors, and by the 
 civil and military magistrates, for their crimes. 
 Their punishment in hard labor in the galleys 
 was often worse than death. All the galley slaves 
 bore the marks of their degradation, being clothed 
 in red and branded on their flesh with the letters 
 GAL. 
 
 But in the purview of “the King’s religion” and 
 the kind of a France and French law that existed be¬ 
 fore the Revolution of 1789, the term “galerien” 
 was given to all convicts. Until this era had passed, 
 a man who exercised his own conscience in worship 
 was deemed worse than a thief or murderer. So 
 there were condemned to the galleys nobles, gentle¬ 
 men, scholars, and other Christians of the Reformed 
 Church, innocent of all evil — except what was pre- 
 
 121 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 scribed by the corporation in Italy and reinforced in 
 France. 
 
 It was by the French people themselves, that the 
 hated name, with all that it signified, was changed to 
 “format” (convict). In the Land of the Bull Fights, 
 the term “galera” is still used for a criminal con¬ 
 demned to penal servitude. 
 
 Through the intercession of Queen Anne of Eng¬ 
 land, the French author of the book “Memoirs of a 
 Protestant,” by Jean Marteilles, regained his free¬ 
 dom. His book, translated by Oliver Goldsmith, 
 was published, first in Holland, in 1757, and later in 
 England. By this and other writings, the horrors of 
 the galley slave system were made known to the 
 world in vivid and realistic presentation. Neverthe¬ 
 less, after the French Revolution, the realities of 
 this relic of savagery had been so far forgotten that it 
 was exceedingly difficult to find even one copy of the 
 books describing it, so thoroughly had the work of 
 this sort of protestantism against prelatical autoc¬ 
 racy been done. Although the phrase “chained to 
 the oar,” became a common expression in rhetoric, 
 few of those who in a later time used it thought of 
 any but of Roman history, and as a matter wholly 
 ancient. Yet to-day, as we read the list of the 
 French galley slaves known to the author of “ Mem¬ 
 oirs of a Protestant,” we recognize them as the same 
 as those borne by American families among us and 
 common in the city directories. Another book, writ¬ 
 ten by Jean F. Bion, issued in London in 1708, re- 
 
 122 
 
THE FLOATING PURGATORY 
 
 counted “the Torments which the French endure, 
 aboard the galleys.” 
 
 Within the past decade, a correspondent and fel¬ 
 low researcher in the Dutch archives found a list of 
 slaves in the French galleys, the highest number 
 passing thirty-nine thousand. 
 
 In colonial America, these dangers of being sent to 
 the floating purgatory established by “the King’s re¬ 
 ligion,” had as real an existence as the war whoop of 
 the Algonquin, the cry of the panther, or the rattle 
 of the venomous snake. We may smile now at such 
 fears, for “they jest at scars, who never felt a 
 wound.” Even the monster brutalities of St. Bar¬ 
 tholomew’s are now explained away in American 
 newspapers and encyclopaedias, that depend too 
 much on the lucre derived from both circulation, box- 
 office receipts, gate-money and that potent system 
 of bribes — the newspaper advertisements. Never¬ 
 theless, we welcome real history, that destroys un¬ 
 just prejudice and popular notions that obscure 
 facts, revealing truth that heals divisions and unites 
 in holy energy those who serve the same Lord and 
 Master. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE ECONOMIC CREATORS OF EUROPE 
 
 The very fact that large classes of the population in 
 Belgium and France — in the main the most intel¬ 
 lectual and industrial — were driven out from the 
 lucrative posts and occupations connected with the 
 name of religion, as well as in ordinary industry, re¬ 
 leased enormous forces for action elsewhere in the 
 building of the modern economic world. 
 
 Such expulsion by bigotry was the best conceiv¬ 
 able preparation for an age which was soon to come, 
 when, through his own free and disciplined energies, 
 man was to summon to serve him the latent and 
 irresistible forces of nature. Some of these unsus¬ 
 pected powers, such as those which science reveals 
 in steam and electricity, were to be, for the first 
 time in the history of human invention, greater than 
 man himself. 
 
 Hitherto such colossal manifestations had existed 
 only in the realms of imagination, in mythology and 
 fairy lore. Now, harnessed potencies, mightier than 
 Samson, Hercules, or even a Frankenstein, were to 
 become the obedient servants of man. The light of 
 suns at unmeasured distances was to be chained to 
 serve him. The vapors of common water were to 
 drive engines and propel ships and cars beyond the 
 might of horses, even though harnessed by the 
 
 124 
 
ECONOMIC CREATORS OF EUROPE 
 
 myriads. Ordinary air was made to reveal unsus¬ 
 pected might for common use. The mysterious cur¬ 
 rent hitherto visible to man chiefly in the lightning 
 and audible in thunder, gave the world a new nerv¬ 
 ous system and made of earth a whispering gallery. 
 An atom was seen to be a miniature universe. 
 
 The unseen powers of the cosmos, hitherto 
 thought to be as untamable as the lion or the ser¬ 
 pent, were to lie down together and a little child was 
 to lead them. An infant’s touch was to blow up 
 the subterranean obstacles of Hell Gate. Out of the 
 alembic of nature, in the heavens among the stars, 
 and from the soil of our planet, were to be sum¬ 
 moned new creations in fiber, food, textiles, tools, 
 motors, things of use and beauty, and lines of 
 achievement, which even the ancient seers and inter¬ 
 preters of dreams never in their wildest imagination 
 bodied forth. 
 
 In the new era, the Almighty Ruler was lifting the 
 curtain to say, “Behold, I create all things new.” 
 Spreading before his children fields and vistas of 
 worlds of old unknown, he was to smile and beckon 
 man on with the invitation, “Concerning the works 
 of my hands, command ye me.” 
 
 Even of the once mysterious Ocean of Darkness, 
 the Atlantic, stretching westward, the redeemed 
 could sing, “The sea is His and He made it.” So 
 trusting the Ruler of the wind and wave, mariners 
 ventured forth to discover new continents. It is no 
 wonder that the first idea, in southern or papal Eu- 
 
 125 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 rope, of a Protestant was that he was a pirate. The 
 vicar of God in Italy had divided the whole world 
 between Spain and Portugal, and were not all oceans 
 in his dominion? 
 
 Banished and exiled from all offices and methods of 
 livelihood under ‘‘the King’s religion,” banned even 
 as to marriage, parenthood, assembly, or worship of 
 God at home, the men of the new mind sought other 
 paths of opportunity in fields afar. The French Hu¬ 
 guenots followed in the path of the Belgic Walloons. 
 They looked not in vain to the eternal hills, whence 
 their help was to come. They heard the voice, “ Be¬ 
 hold, I set before you an open door,” and even 
 through exile they entered to find peace and prosper¬ 
 ity, in the British Isles, the Dutch Republic, Den¬ 
 mark, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, and Germany. 
 They even sailed beneath the equator to found in 
 South America and South Africa centers of industry. 
 Whether under the Northern Lights or the Southern 
 Cross, they leavened with their joyous spirit and 
 habits of life the communities in which they dwelt. 
 
 One might make a varied and lengthy catalogue of 
 the products with which, in every line of human 
 achievement and industry, they surprised the Euro¬ 
 pean nations. 
 
 In England, the paper, glass, textiles, dyes, prod¬ 
 ucts of the soil, improved plants in the garden, 
 whether exotics or staples, with the newly applied 
 results of experience in trade, finance, state, and 
 warcraft, changed Great Britain from an agricul- 
 
 126 
 
ECONOMIC CREATORS OF EUROPE 
 
 tural to a manufacturing and colonizing nation. 
 What they did for England was felt also in Scot¬ 
 land, Wales, and Ireland, in each of which countries 
 thousands of refugees, whose tongue was French, 
 settled. The southern “Irish Walloon” soldier, the 
 Scotch dyer, the northern Hibernian maker of lace 
 and linen, the Welsh sailor and explorer — who was 
 very often one of continental ancestry — carried the 
 fame of the Huguenot to the ends of the earth. 
 Thousands to-day who bear names first heard and 
 written in Hainault, Liege, or the Ardennes — who 
 are “lost tribes,” so far as it concerns their own per¬ 
 sonal knowledge of recorded genealogy — wonder 
 how it came about that their known ancestors were 
 “British,” of the three or four kinds; while yet they 
 bear names that are unmistakably French or Wal¬ 
 loon in form. And this, despite those phonetic trans¬ 
 formations that outrival in wondrous shapes the 
 things and forms of life that suffer the “ sea change ” 
 of which Shakespeare makes Ariel sing and tell. The 
 numerous statutes of England relating to the deni¬ 
 zation and naturalization of allies make interesting 
 reading to the student of the progress of civilization. 
 
 In Germany, out of the hegira of Walloon and 
 Huguenot scholars, merchants, soldiers, artisans, 
 agriculturalists, the Great Elector, Frederick Wil¬ 
 liam, embodied a French state in his realm. At Ber¬ 
 lin and Cologne, and in probably a score of other 
 cities, a multitude of these immigrant craftsmen “in¬ 
 troduced arts previously unknown to the ruder civil- 
 
 127 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 ization of the North.” These newcomers made the 
 rivers of Prussia arteries of trade! They opened the 
 mines and diverted to Germany the skill and metal¬ 
 lic products, for which the western countries had 
 been so long noted. Prussia’s regiments were might¬ 
 ily reinforced by these refugees, and her military 
 power made more efficient by exiled officers. In the 
 noble families, courtesy became prevailingly the 
 rule, because the new immigration was “solid and 
 civilizing.” Nor were any schools in the Empire 
 equal to those founded by the foreigners, whose pol¬ 
 ished language became that of the court and diplom¬ 
 acy. The Elector promoted the study and publica¬ 
 tion of French literature. Nor does Reginald Poole, 
 who wrote on “The Huguenots in Dispersion,” err 
 in asserting that “the society of Berlin was . . . the 
 creation of the exile, and it was the refugees that 
 gave it that mobile course of thought, that finer cul¬ 
 ture, that taste in matters of art, that instinct of 
 conversation, which had been the unique possession 
 of the French. They diffused their own spirit — 
 quick, fine, lucid, the spirit of French vivacity and 
 precision.” 
 
 What one may tell of Prussia, he may truly affirm 
 of Russia, as any one who has studied the “address 
 books,” or city directories, of Petrograd and other 
 Muscovite cities — which were most appropriately 
 published in French — knows well. From the days 
 of Peter the Great to the Treaty of Portsmouth in 
 1905, when the Baron de Rosen, great grandson of a 
 
 128 
 
ECONOMIC CREATORS OF EUROPE 
 
 Huguenot, sat opposite Count Komura — one of 
 the writer’s pupils during three years in Tokyo — 
 French and Huguenot influences have leavened Rus¬ 
 sia for the better. 
 
 Of Sweden, the story of the Walloon who created 
 the modern iron industry, in both mining and metal 
 working, is told elsewhere. The narrative of how 
 Denmark was leavened for the better and French- 
 speaking churches formed and still maintained in 
 Copenhagen is of absorbing interest. Into the hos¬ 
 pitable Republic, the stream of immigration was con¬ 
 tinuous and ever-increasing, until America helped to 
 absorb the mass of people from France and Belgic 
 Land. Apart from the infusion into the Dutch East 
 India colonies and the revenue accruing from the 
 Greenland fisheries, the flourishing book trade in 
 French and the outpoured literature in that tongue 
 tell their own story. One need not wonder at the ex¬ 
 ceedingly numerous names, of French and Belgic 
 origin, to be read to-day in the city and town direc¬ 
 tories of Queen Wilhelmina’s realm, or in what was 
 once New Netherland, or in the Eastern, Middle, and 
 Southern States of the American Commonwealth. 
 
 As seen in our day, in the perspective of three cen¬ 
 turies, the historical situation was wonderfully like 
 that in the year 487 B.c. Then, in prophetic vision, 
 two eras of civilization began, of which the world 
 now beholds the issues and results. It was the setting, 
 in humanity’s stadium, of two athletes, that were to 
 race down the centuries and fling their torches into 
 
 129 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 the ages to come. Even after the land and temples 
 of both have been long under the heels of the con¬ 
 querors, their stories told and their careers ended, 
 we see what the seer meant when, twenty-seven hun¬ 
 dred years ago, he gave the word, and they were off 
 in the race: “Thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O 
 Greece.” Yet to-day, after the fleeting centuries, 
 which civilization gave our race the greater blessing, 
 while flinging forward the torch of democracy’s 
 progress for the remaking of the world unto ever- 
 increasing spiritual solidarity? 
 
 Neither Walloons nor Huguenots were disobedient 
 to the heavenly vision, nor deaf to the Voice that 
 called. Both went forth, scarce knowing whither 
 they went, yet with songs in their mouths and un¬ 
 ending gladness upon their heads, to face duty with 
 the creative eye and hand and to bring blessings 
 wherever they set foot. Let us never forget that the 
 Belgic Walloon was the pilot, predecessor, and ex¬ 
 emplar of success to the French Huguenot, even as 
 the Pilgrim set the mark and beacon for the Puritan. 
 
 Yet, while nine nations and three continents 
 gratefully confess their deep debt to Walloon and 
 Huguenot, in the crown of their achievements, may 
 there not also be set on their heads the supreme 
 jewel of the colonization of North America? It is to 
 the Huguenots that we owe the idea of fashioning 
 the wilderness beyond the Atlantic into a garden, 
 and creating on the new continent a Protestant 
 nation, a commonwealth of mental freedom, a land 
 
 130 
 
ECONOMIC CREATORS OF EUROPE 
 
 of schools unshackled by priest or bigot, while con¬ 
 structing a temple of ordered civil liberty. 
 
 The dream of the United States of America, free 
 from feudal rulers, kings, emperors, or political prel¬ 
 ates, may not have taken shape in the mind of Ad¬ 
 miral Coligny; but it is to the French, and not to 
 the English, that we owe the initial peopling of the 
 Northern half of the American continent by men in¬ 
 stinct with love of freedom. Nor has any one made 
 more generous acknowledgment of both fact and 
 truth in this matter than Sidney Lee, who led all his 
 countrymen in drawing the map and telling the story 
 of British achievement in the great “Dictionary of 
 National Biography.” In addition to his colossal 
 tasks, he wrote thus in “Scribner’s Magazine,” for 
 June, 1907: 
 
 The vision of religious liberty in the new world is a 
 Huguenot creation. It was slow to acquire stern enough 
 sway over the minds of Englishmen to move them to 
 action. . . . The word written and spoken in France of the 
 Calvinistic colonies did penetrating work in England. 
 The beginnings of New England were cast in the Hugue¬ 
 not mould. The great American project of Puritan Eng¬ 
 land differed from the French schemes in Brazil and 
 Florida, neither in motive nor in principle, but [only] in 
 practical achievement and enduring triumph. From the 
 colonial failures of Protestant France followed the colonial 
 success of Protestant England. 
 
 It was in the Huguenot spirit that the Puritans of 
 England, when penal legislation drove them from their 
 homes [after hospitable welcome in the Dutch Republic] 
 looked to America for protection and salvation. 
 
 131 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 It was Gaspard de Coligny, the great Admiral 
 of France, who shared the vision of the Hebrew 
 prophet of 487 b.c., when the latter set in dramatic 
 contrast the equipment of the two athletes, Greece 
 and Judah, as they started on their career down 
 the ages — the one representing arms and physical 
 force in the phalanx, the other the spirit of peace and 
 altruism in the law and the prophets. 
 
 On the die cut for the memorial stamps and the 
 coin struck from the national mint, to celebrate in 
 America the Walloon Tercentenary, there should 
 be the image of the French Admiral Coligny. 
 
 Not the least notable of the achievements of 
 Reformed Churchmen was in theology and liter¬ 
 ature. Yet none of their most important books 
 escaped the attention of the centralized autocracy 
 in Italy, by which a new form of repression was 
 organized. 
 
 Only the slow lapse of the centuries was to reveal 
 the results of this law and ban which in the name 
 of God was laid upon the human mind and spirit. 
 Alarmed at the intellect, scholarship, power of 
 mental discipline, and literary attractiveness of the 
 books published by the Free Churchmen, led by Cal¬ 
 vin, the father of the modern public school, the papal 
 dynasty proceeded further to fetter the human intel¬ 
 lect. Hence the founding and proclamation of the 
 Index Expurgatorius of prohibited books. To read 
 one of the publications of the Free Churchmen, thus 
 banned, through a majority vote in secret conclave, 
 
 132 
 
ECONOMIC CREATORS OF EUROPE 
 
 by a bureau in the Italian city, was alleged to im¬ 
 peril the soul’s salvation. A priest must first secure 
 permission of his bishop, before he could, without 
 danger of eternal damnation, peruse the publication 
 of the Reformers. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 JESSE DE FOREST AND THE SHIP 
 NEW NETHERLAND 
 
 Jesse de Forest, 1 a fugitive Walloon, the potential 
 founder of New York, had for years looked for a 
 home in the New World, but he did not at first apply 
 for aid and transportation to the States-General, for 
 until 1621 there was no West India Company. Usse- 
 linx, a Belgian refugee in the Republic, had persist¬ 
 ently agitated with pen and voice the scheme of such 
 an armed trading and colonizing corporation, for the 
 colonization of America as a checkmate to Spain. 
 Yet this was the very idea against which the great 
 Barneveldt was fighting. 
 
 The East India Company, formed in 1595, had no 
 jurisdiction over America, nor any intent to colonize 
 it. In 1609, their great purpose was to find a shorter 
 route to Japan, China, and the East Indies. To this 
 end, encouraged by the Walloon, Peter Plancius, 
 they commissioned the intrepid English pilot, 
 Henry Hudson, in the Half Moon. This ship, named 
 after the silver omen of victory of the invincible, 
 self-named Beggars, entered the waters of what was 
 to be [Terra] Nova Belgica. To this day the Dutch 
 speak of the crescent as 4 ‘halve maen.” 
 
 1 His story, as far as known, is told in A Walloon Family in America, 
 by Mrs. Robert W. de Forest, 2 vols., New York, 1914. 
 
 134 
 
JESSE DE FOREST 
 
 Hudson sailed first towards the North Pole, but 
 finding himself shut in by icebergs ahead and con¬ 
 fronted with mutiny, turned his prow westward, hop¬ 
 ing, beyond America, to find China. With this end 
 in view, he sailed into the waters of the Middle 
 States. 
 
 By 1619, the Union cause in the Federal Republic 
 of the United Netherlands — the real question at is¬ 
 sue being hidden from most historians by the smoke 
 screen of theology — had triumphed. The perils of 
 state right and secession were over, and the men of 
 the new mind were ready to turn faith into sight and 
 hope into fruition. 
 
 Those politicians whose entire intellect was con¬ 
 centrated upon protocols, documents, and legal rou¬ 
 tine, and hence could not discern that the Dutch 
 people had become a commonwealth, a nation, and 
 not merely a huddle of sovereignties, or an agglomer¬ 
 ation of political units, had lost in the clash. Both 
 sides, in their faults and their political convictions, 
 and in the violence of their passions, were in a state 
 of degradation beastward, even to bloodthirstiness. 
 In this general wrongheadedness, they were equally 
 men of their times. The sects, in their undisciplined 
 energies, and “the churchmen,” so-called, were rivals 
 in the same reversion and path that lead not to 
 Heaven. Barneveldt was beheaded. 
 
 In the Netherlands, there were statesmen who re¬ 
 alized that however faulty and imperfect the federal 
 union of 1579 might be, nationality and enterprise, 
 
 135 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 with something more than the assertion of state 
 right and stimulus of the home market in Europe, 
 were needed for higher purposes. There must be not 
 only resistance to Spanish despotism, but the crea¬ 
 tion of a true commonwealth, and the safeguarding 
 of its existence. 
 
 With release of pent-up energies and with Wal¬ 
 loon and Fleming reinforcement, an advance along 
 the whole line was ordered against Spain — the 
 giant now refreshed for a new onslaught against 
 liberty, after the Great Truce, from 1609 to 1621. 
 
 The progressive Union men resolved that the un¬ 
 leashed powers of both war in armed ships and peace 
 in colonization should be carried across the seas, even 
 into America; which Spain, by papal decree, claimed 
 as her sole property. The new continent from pole 
 to pole lay under the Spanish scepter and ban. All 
 except Spaniards were deemed common poachers, 
 burglars, or thieves, if found anywhere in America. 
 
 To wrest this scepter from the Land of the Inqui¬ 
 sition, of gloomy fanaticism, of bull-fighters and 
 slave catchers, to cast that scepter into the sea, and 
 to free America from Spanish ideals, the men under 
 the orange, white, and blue flag of the Dutch Re¬ 
 public went forth to do a work which was completed 
 under President McKinley, in 1898. 
 
 Yet this invasion was to be less by warships 
 loaded with artillery and soldiers, than by peaceful 
 families, even those who in the long run were to con¬ 
 quer wild nature and savage man by tilling the soil, 
 
 ' 136 
 
JESSE DE FOREST 
 
 making homes, and rearing family altars, school- 
 houses, and churches. It is a pity that Motley 
 and most writers treat the conflict in the Nether¬ 
 lands, between the forces represented by Maurice 
 and Barneveldt, as almost wholly theological, and 
 the long struggle on our continent between Latin 
 and Germanic types of civilization, for the posses¬ 
 sion of North America, as chiefly military and stra¬ 
 tegic. 
 
 In the former case at Dordrecht, in 1619, the con¬ 
 flict was political, envenomed by theology; in the 
 latter, it was mainly social and economic. On Amer¬ 
 ican soil, it was between feudalism and family life, 
 even more than of forms of either politics or religion. 
 It was a fair test of ultimate success between free 
 churchmen and adherents to the papacy. 
 
 In 1619, at the end of the Twelve Years’ Truce 
 and in view of the imminent onslaught of the rein¬ 
 forced Spaniards, the Dutch government, needing 
 every ship, cartridge, and cannon, could not spare 
 the two men-of-war asked for by the English Separa¬ 
 tists, to convoy the Speedwell and Mayflower to the 
 Hudson River region, in which they expected to 
 locate. In 1623, however, the States-General was 
 ready to detach an armed yacht to convoy one of the 
 West India Company’s colonizing ships to the same 
 region, should colonists be enrolled to go thither. 
 The fur trade was a monopoly, and the settlers, 
 whose passage was thus furnished free, must go 
 out, not as “the summer soldier and the sunshine 
 
 137 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 patriot,'' who returned home in winter. They must 
 agree to be farmers or servants and remain on the 
 soil. So, not as the commercial or fishing adventur¬ 
 ers, but as home-makers, as permanent settlers, they 
 sailed over the sea, as the pioneers of Christian civ¬ 
 ilization. 
 
 Few natives who had Dutch grandfathers wished 
 at that time to tempt the risks of ocean and wilder¬ 
 ness, when the home soil was so fertile, and when 
 industry, to use their own word, was “booming.” 
 Moreover, the Dutch fully believed that the Span¬ 
 iard, who had been once beaten to his knees, would 
 again be humbled by the triumphant Republic, their 
 freedom be fully won, and life more than ever be 
 worth living on ancestral soil. They had already 
 stood confiscation, killing, and burning for over 
 forty years. Now, with true Dutch pluck, they were 
 ready for another grapple and to stand forty years 
 more, if need be, for a fight to a finish. 
 
 Yet to make sure of winning, it must be a case of 
 eendracht magt macht , that is, of the one pull all to¬ 
 gether that makes might. Such being the situation, 
 what good would it yield, if even a courageous leader 
 should apply for Government aid in ships and for 
 the resources that were necessary to make a success? 
 Most colonial enterprises, thus far attempted, had 
 spelled starvation. 
 
 Such a leader, who combined vision with daring 
 and an indomitable will, stood forth. He was Jesse 
 de Forest, a Walloon. Did he hate the Spaniard and 
 
 138 
 
JESSE DE FOREST 
 
 long to help in humbling despotism, through hallow¬ 
 ing American soil, by free worship and by honorable 
 toil? Would he help pure religion, while providing a 
 home for his children and for posterity? 
 
 Long before 1620 he had begun to dream. In Ley¬ 
 den, this Walloon was established as an expert dyer. 
 He had welcomed those later comers, the Free 
 Churchmen outcast from England, their own coun¬ 
 try, because they would not sell their consciences for 
 pelf or ease. 1 After all the doors of the home land 
 had been tightly shut and kept barred, they too had 
 looked to America and for a home in the wilderness. 
 They would perpetuate on the new continent the 
 best traditions of English freedom, for they held the 
 future. To-day, after so long a time, England is 
 proud enough of the Pilgrims. 
 
 The subject of colonization had been discussed 
 by the Leyden Walloons for years. Most probably 
 Jesse de Forest saw the picked adventurers bound 
 for America — only the young and the strong, for 
 the older ones stayed in Leyden — loading the boats 
 in the canal at the end of the Rapenburg, for the in¬ 
 land voyage to join the Speedwell, at Delfshaven. 
 Then he applied to King James of England to per- 
 
 1 Bradford’s History of the Plymouth Plantation shows us how close 
 in the Republic were the relations of the “French” (Walloon) and 
 the Separatist churches, and J. G. de Hoop Scheffer’s History of the 
 Free Churchmen [Brownists, Congregationalists, and Baptists], edited 
 by W. E. Griffis (Ithaca, New York, 1922), has still more abundant 
 references to the English and Belgic refugees who held a common 
 faith. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Walloon churches 
 in the Republic numbered sixty-eight. 
 
 139 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 mit fifty or sixty families, three hundred people in 
 all, as well Walloons as French, and all of the 
 Reformed Church, to be allowed to settle in “Vir¬ 
 ginia.” He also prayed His Majesty to furnish 
 protection, transportation, and defense from and 
 against all enemies, and to maintain them in their 
 religion. 
 
 That domain, named after the Virgin Queen Eliza¬ 
 beth, meant the geographical space anywhere and 
 everywhere included on the continent claimed by 
 England because of Cabot’s voyage of 1497; but 
 among the Dutch, “the West Indies” was then the 
 common name for America. The application of the 
 Leyden Walloons was sent in the form of a round 
 robin to “the wisest fool in Christendom,” through 
 the British envoy, Sir Dudley Carleton. This was 
 the same gentleman who had had the tilt with Elder 
 Brewster over the matter of printing, which, in the 
 main, was free in the Republic, but in England was 
 licensed by royalty and the prelates only. These 
 Walloons wished to plant a colony and keep to¬ 
 gether in one place, using their own language and 
 form of worship. Jesse de Forest, in the document 
 — which can still be seen among the records in Lon¬ 
 don — was a “certaine Walon.” 
 
 » 
 
 But de Forest’s proposition was too liberal, or too 
 specific, for the English of that day, whether repre¬ 
 sented by King, Court, Church, or Trading Com¬ 
 pany. The influences of bigotry were hardening into 
 that settled policy which kept back from America 
 
 140 
 
JESSE DE FOREST 
 
 John Robinson, the large-minded and big-hearted 
 pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
 Yet no light affair, such as the refusal of the king 
 or a corporation, could chill the dauntless spirit of 
 such a man as Jesse de Forest. He had given up his 
 home for conscience’ sake, and had, over and over 
 again, bided his time, until finally the opportunity 
 came. In 1620, when the idea of nationalism had 
 triumphed over that of sectionalism, or secession, 
 and not one stripe had been struck from the Union 
 flag, the Dutch West India Company was formed. 
 The dream of Usselinx, the Walloon, had become 
 reality. The time was ripe and American coloniza¬ 
 tion was settled upon as the policy of the Republic. 
 If the two hundred or more Englishmen left behind 
 in Leyden, who were uncertain of their sovereign’s 
 mind — their only hope being that he would wink 
 at their venture — were bold enough to tempt the 
 stormy ocean, as they kept on doing, from 1621 to 
 1630, who could keep back a Walloon — ever the 
 typical man of alert mind? 
 
 The new, clean ship, New Netherland, was built 
 by the Dutch West India Company to convey this 
 Walloon colony to America. If pure faith and high 
 principles were as favoring winds, then no craft, be¬ 
 fore a.d. 1623, crossed the Atlantic with nobler pro¬ 
 pulsion. 
 
 The national colors that floated at her mizzen 
 were those of a federal republic. It was the first flag 
 in northern Europe which was independent of per- 
 
 141 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 sons, whether prelates, feudal rulers, or sovereigns. 
 It represented seven states in federation, a com¬ 
 monwealth. This flew to the breeze. Their mottoes 
 were “Union makes strength,” and “By concord, 
 little things become great,” while the piety of these 
 argonauts was expressed in fervency, “Nisi Dom- 
 inus frustra”—the title words of Psalm cxxvn — 
 which were sung in their devotions and shown in 
 their world. Expanded from the initial words, this 
 meant, “Except the Lord build the city, they labor 
 in vain that build it.” These Walloon voyagers were 
 not mere dreamers. Their idealism was laid upon an 
 unshakable basis. “They looked for a city, which 
 hath foundations.” 
 
 At the peak of the foremast was the proud flag 
 of the armed corporation, “ready for a fight or a 
 frolic,” or a victory through industry. It bore the 
 monogram G. W. C., meaning the Chartered (Geoc- 
 trooyd) West India Company, not of “Holland,” 
 but of the Republic of the United Netherlands. 
 
 Of this monster trading corporation — besides 
 possessing powers on land and sea, especially those 
 of war, for defense against Dunkirk pirates, Spanish 
 galleons, and hostile savages, whether called Chris¬ 
 tian or pagan — it was expected and ordered that 
 first of all, recognition should be made of our com¬ 
 mon humanity; that is, the fair treatment of the 
 aborigines as men, whatever their condition, creed, 
 or color. 
 
 Every square acre occupied by the settlers must 
 
 142 
 
JESSE DE FOREST 
 
 be paid for. It was a case, not of “may,” but of 
 “must,” in this duty of extinguishing aboriginal 
 claims to the soil; while the instruction of the na¬ 
 tives, as far as possible, in Christianity, was also 
 made obligatory. In addition, the Company must 
 provide both the minister and the school teacher. 
 On board the ship New Netherland was the Church 
 officer, consoler of the sick, leader of song, and con¬ 
 ductor of worship, with license to marry couples; 
 for among these colonists home-making was the su¬ 
 preme idea as the basis of society. 
 
 It is true that these Walloons, so far as detailed 
 and complete records are concerned, stand in history 
 clothed, as it were, with but fig leaves as compared 
 with the full robes of the Pilgrim Fathers, who wear 
 the vestments of Bradford. Comparatively few are 
 the relics and verbal fossils, even as recognized in 
 the names of their descendants and the places upon 
 which they settled. The reason is plain. They had 
 none among them like Bradford, to tell, even to 
 minute particulars, their own story and clothe their 
 venture of faith with the literary garb of subjective 
 opinion, and even of self-flattery, sentiment, and ro¬ 
 mance. Nor is their own literature of polemics or de¬ 
 fense against enemies voluminous. They had none 
 behind, in the country they had left, to vilify and 
 caricature them. Despite the hatred of ecclesiastics 
 who used their own speech to pursue them, the tra¬ 
 dition of them in their former home faded as did that 
 of the Pilgrims at Scrooby. Like good beginners of 
 
 143 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 a better time, they gave up, ultimately, their own 
 language and united with their neighbors to build 
 the states in which they had found refuge. 
 
 We have no sure proof that any of the colonizers 
 of 1624 settled on Manhattan, though later, some 
 who came in the ships New Netherland or Unity 
 made their homes there along with many others. 
 Until the name of the future city (not the fort) was 
 adopted as New Amsterdam, the island settlement 
 was affectionately spoken of as New Avesnes, after 
 the birthplace of their leader, Jesse de Forest. 
 
 No company of American colonizers was more de¬ 
 vout, none more pure in morals, nor was there one 
 more ready to acknowledge the mercies of God, or 
 the possibilities of good in man. The intimate life of 
 the churches in New Netherland and their records 
 fear no comparison with those of colonial New Eng¬ 
 land, or the southland. Certainly no hands were 
 readier, no feet more jubilant in helping to build the 
 American Commonwealth, than those of these grate¬ 
 ful children of faith and daring. One has but to scan 
 the documents of church and town and the muster 
 rolls of colonial and later wars, or of the Revolution, 
 or those down to 1918, or the lists of patrons, bene¬ 
 factors, or educators, and of able men and women, 
 and count up the shining names on the Nation’s bead 
 roll to be convinced of this. The record of the Wal¬ 
 loons and Huguenots, in American history, is ex¬ 
 celled by none. Yet though their light has been too 
 long hidden, under bushels variously named, we can 
 
 144 
 
JESSE DE FOREST 
 
 discern in the spectrum of critical research the su¬ 
 perb bright lines of their story. 
 
 We do not read of these argonauts of 1624 having 
 arms, swords, or muskets, or of any desire to use 
 them on the natives. They trusted more to their 
 determination to do justice with the red men, and 
 the sequel of success shows that they trusted not 
 in vain. 
 
 It would reward the critical student to search and 
 make comparison of the results of the fire-and- 
 sword policy in dealing with the Indians, with those 
 following the methods of the Prince of Peace. Surely 
 Lincoln spoke not in vain concerning the negro slave, 
 and our Government records show that while it has 
 cost us a million dollars to kill an Indian, a mere 
 fraction of this sum now educates him. Would that 
 the spirit and praise of Roger Williams, Peter Min- 
 uit, and William Penn had always been followed! 
 
 However varied, in blood and creed, in economic 
 condition, or mental equipment, may have been the 
 colonists of North America — numbering in their 
 nationalities at least a score — or however we may 
 lack the exact details of their previous life at home 
 or on shipboard, or of their creeds, or their motives 
 in leaving their old home for the New World, of this 
 common truth we may be sure: one and all, in each 
 case, they followed at first the customs and tradi¬ 
 tions of their native lands. They had the same in¬ 
 firmities, ideas, notions, convictions, and specters of 
 the brain which were dominant in their ancestors 
 
 145 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 and in the old lands. Hence their actions tallied 
 with their mental acquirements, heritages, and out¬ 
 look. 
 
 Nevertheless, after subjecting to the hottest fires 
 of criticism the “makers of America” — that is, the 
 United States — before 1790, and exposing their 
 limitations, with all their faults and infirmities, one 
 can be sure that, in overwhelming majority, they 
 were from the countries or the peoples that accepted 
 the principles of the Reformation. These principles, 
 when fully worked out, meant the separation of 
 Church and State, a free press, free public schools 
 sustained by taxation, no interference with the con¬ 
 sciences of men so long as they were law-abiding; 
 self-government in the commonwealth, and absolute 
 freedom from any European potentate in either 
 Church or State, with unquestioning loyalty to the 
 constitution and laws as made by “the people of the 
 United States.” 
 
 Once inside Sandy Hook, and past the Island of 
 the States, the ship New Netherland from Amster¬ 
 dam, after leaving small colonies on two of the is¬ 
 lands, Long and Staten, ploughed her way north¬ 
 ward. Through the rippling “River Flowing out of 
 the Mountains,” then flush with the water of the 
 melted snows of spring-time, they sailed on. The eyes 
 of the colonists had never fallen on such a majestic 
 stream, so imposing also in its environment. In its 
 navigable length it far excelled the Scheldt, the 
 Meuse, or the Sambre. 
 
 146 
 
JESSE DE FOREST 
 
 Nor had these Walloon pioneers ever made so 
 long an inland or river voyage. Past the Palisades, 
 through the Highlands, in the shadows of the Cat- 
 skills they moved, and then the ship beat its way 
 through the low meadowland. At last they came to 
 look upon the site that might be as truly called Tre- 
 mont, as was Boston; for the contour of the land in 
 their new home showed the three distinct slopes, 
 with ravines between the ridges — now hidden by 
 houses, and over which are viaducts, from hilltop to 
 hilltop. 
 
 At the base of the hills, they erected their bark 
 cabins. Neither here nor at Plymouth — in spite of 
 the blunders of inaccurate artists, too fond of mere 
 quaintness and oddities — was the log cabin the in¬ 
 itial type of domestic architecture. After the primi¬ 
 tive bark dwelling, the later huts were of roughly 
 dressed planks, and the still later edifices were of 
 brick and stone. Those which were visible to the 
 writer in 1866, or which still remain, show in beams 
 and girders the marks of the broad-axe. New Paltz 
 and Kingston have the larger number of these sur¬ 
 vivals of colonial architecture. 
 
 The members of Jesse de Forest’s company in the 
 ship New Netherland were the first regular, per¬ 
 manent colonists in any number who made homes in 
 New Netherland. They were the first to come di¬ 
 rectly under the law and regulations of the Dutch 
 Republic and to obtain valid land titles. Whether 
 any of them settled on Manhattan is of far less his- 
 
 147 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 torical importance than is the cardinal fact that they 
 made their homes in New Netherland, on the soil of 
 the four States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl¬ 
 vania, and Delaware. The four couples married on 
 the ship were put on a yacht, and, ascending Dela¬ 
 ware Bay and River, settled on an island near Tren¬ 
 ton and later lived on the soil of Delaware, which 
 owes its statehood to the Dutch occupation. 
 
 Between the years 1609 and 1623, there had been 
 various spasmodic visits of ships and men, and even 
 of women, to New Netherland. There were even 
 temporary habitations built and fields sown and 
 tilled for food. The Netherlands Trading Company 
 had been chartered for trade and under it a fort or 
 two were built as trading posts. Among these visi¬ 
 tors, explorers, traders, or even farmers, before 1623 
 and 1624, were Walloons, who, however, came from 
 the seven states of the Northern Netherlands and 
 were registered as citizens of the Dutch Republic. 
 
 With these sporadic visits, with the activities of 
 individuals, or the Netherlands Trading Company, 
 or even with the first occupation of Manhattan, or of 
 any other island in the archipelago at the mouth of 
 the Hudson River, however important these matters 
 may seem to-day, to the inhabitants of one State or 
 city, our narrative does not concern itself. The basic 
 fact is that during the Twelve Years’ Truce between 
 Spain which claimed all America and the triumphant 
 Republic, the Dutch Government authorities could 
 not honorably enter upon the enterprise of American 
 
 148 
 
JESSE DE FOREST 
 
 colonization, grant land titles, or in any way legally 
 authorize the formal colonization of a continent 
 claimed by Spain. Nor did they. The States-Gen- 
 eral took no official oversight of the visitors to or 
 denizens of New Netherland, granted no certifi¬ 
 cates of private ownership of the soil, nor in any way 
 violated in letter or spirit their plighted good faith, 
 or the terms of the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain. 
 Both governments honorably observed their agree¬ 
 ments. 
 
 But the National Synod of Dort — held against 
 Barneveldt’s state right provincial and peace policy 
 and the wishes of the Arminians and carried to com¬ 
 pletion by Maurice, backed by the Calvinists and 
 the Unionists — cleared the ground. The West In¬ 
 dia Company was formed and the colonization — 
 not of Manhattan, nor of the Delaware River island, 
 nor of any specified site or portion, but of New Neth¬ 
 erland — was decided upon and the colonizing ship, 
 named after the new province, was built. To execute 
 the national decision of the States-General, it was 
 decreed that a civil government and land titles 
 should be given to the settlers and the new terra , or 
 land, be named Nova Belgica. The classic, oldest, 
 most honored name of the country, antedating con¬ 
 querors, feudal rulers, thrones, kings, or even re¬ 
 publics, and in recognition of the people and the soil, 
 was chosen for the seal of New Belgium (Sigillum 
 Novi Belgii). It was not an accident that the first 
 governor was chosen from among the people whom 
 
 149 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 William the Silent had hoped to incorporate in the 
 Republic of seventeen states, the Walloon, Peter 
 Minuit. So it came to pass that the colony on the 
 area of what afterwards became the four States 
 of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and New 
 York, formed the only group of settlements that was 
 under one government, and that of a republic. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MAKING THE WILDERNESS BLOOM 
 
 With those industrious habits that are second na¬ 
 ture to a Walloon, the men of the eighteen families 
 settled at Fort Orange, the future site of Albany, and 
 began at once to tickle the earth to make it laugh 
 with harvests. With houses to build, the ground to 
 plough and harrow, and homes to equip with com¬ 
 forts, the days sped swiftly by and sleep at night 
 was sound. Sky and river, fruitful earth, and pleas¬ 
 ant climate made the new life a joy. They missed 
 the chimes at hours and quarters, the carillons 
 making music in the air, the old surroundings of 
 art and culture, and the grand edifices, civic and ec¬ 
 clesiastical, of the home land; but they were happy 
 with new visions of peace, freedom, and prosperity. 
 With the true spirit of pioneers, these people, of 
 piety, faith, and industry, led the van of Distinctive 
 America. They had in them, deeply rooted, that 
 which best makes the foundations of a state secure 
 — family life, industry, and religion. Moreover, 
 they were not discontented ladies and gentlemen 
 seeking gold and luxury, but plain people willing 
 to toil. They considered life worth living only when 
 the primeval law of eating one’s bread in the sweat 
 of the face was obeyed. 
 
 There is no drapery of mythology, sentimental 
 
 151 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 conceit, or swollen family pride about what was 
 brought over in the ship New Netherland, nor even 
 vulgar notions and popular superstitions, which 
 grow, like fungus on a dead log, and, long after the 
 event, real or imaginary, furnish food for the novel, 
 the pageant, the drama, or the moving picture shows. 
 Little furniture and not many extant relics came 
 over in the vessel. Yet the scene and the emotions of 
 those who, with their families, first saw the sites of 
 the future cities of New York, Brooklyn, Albany, 
 and Philadelphia are not without trustworthy tra¬ 
 dition. 
 
 The Walloons won friends at once. They did not 
 lie awake at midnight in terror, listening to the blood¬ 
 curdling war-whoop of the oncoming savage. Even 
 before they reached their bourne, the first link in the 
 silver chain of friendship between the red and the 
 white man, which in Iroquois oratory and practice 
 was to be “brightened” again and again, had been 
 forged. As early as 1614, the Dutch commander, af¬ 
 ter satisfying the natives' claim of ownership of the 
 land, had made a covenant of peace with the lords 
 of the Long House. 
 
 It may be that there was no altruism, or indeed 
 any noble sentiment, on either side, in this compact 
 of friendship with the Five Nations. The Iroquois 
 sought the friendship of the Dutch for the sake 
 of firearms and for vengeance against the Hurons, 
 their old enemies, and their new ones, the Canadian 
 French, and the Dutch wanted furs. Long are the 
 
 152 
 
MAKING THE WILDERNESS BLOOM 
 
 memories of injured men! The Iroquois had never 
 forgotten the deadly interference of Champlain and 
 his comrades dressed in iron clothes, and with iron 
 tubes charged with lightning and thunder, when on 
 the lake shore the northern and southern men of 
 the Stone Age had met in battle. The clash of con¬ 
 flict at long range, against the warriors of the Long 
 House, was decisive; but not because of superior 
 war craft, or the valor of the Hurons. It had come 
 about because of the white men’s partisanship and 
 their new weapons, which killed invisibly at a dis¬ 
 tance, when no bowstring had twanged or spear had 
 been hurled. 
 
 The Iroquois, having from the first been treated 
 like fellow human beings, were determined to safe¬ 
 guard the friendship of the men who could not only 
 trade with them, but also vitally help them. Hence 
 the “ Covenant of Corlaer ” lasted much longer even 
 than Penn’s covenant with the Lenni Lenape In¬ 
 dians — so praised by Voltaire — even until the 
 nineteenth century. Then in 1874, the League of the 
 Iroquois itself, in the presence of ex-President Fill¬ 
 more and some of the highly civilized descendants 
 of the Indians — ladies and gentlemen of rank and 
 fashion — was dissolved. The friendship of red and 
 white men in New York perdured. This “Covenant 
 of Corlaer” became a barrier to French-Canadian 
 aggression and was one of the factors deciding 
 Anglo-Saxon domination in North America. 
 
 It happened that shortly after the arrival of the 
 
 153 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Walloons, at Beverwyck, a war party of the Mohi¬ 
 cans, following the bad example of the Hurons with 
 Champlain, tested friendship on a new venture, by 
 making use of their Dutch neighbors as allies. They 
 requested Commander Daniel K. Krieckenbeeck, 
 with six of his garrison, to go with them on the war¬ 
 path. Of the white men, one was known to be from 
 Hoorn, in North Holland, and two were Portuguese. 
 The two bodies of armed men marched together. 
 
 The Dutch, having guns, were probably in the 
 van. When about three miles out, they either met 
 with an ambuscade, or in the open faced a sudden 
 and furious onslaught from the Mohawks, who at¬ 
 tacked with a shower of arrows. The commander of 
 the fort, three of his men and many of the Mohicans 
 were killed. 
 
 The Iroquois at this time, like our own far-off 
 pagan ancestors, were occasional cannibals, but the 
 cannibalism of the American Indians — as Mary 
 Jamison, the illustrious captive, has explained to us 
 — had a religious significance; as probably was the 
 case among all ancient man-eating or man-burning 
 nations. Cremation was made to propitiate the spir¬ 
 its of their own slain warriors and to satisfy their fam¬ 
 ilies and kinsfolk, who mourned for the lost, while 
 the feasting was to gain the courage of brave foes. In 
 addition, the Mohawks carried back home a leg and 
 an arm, to be divided among bereaved relatives in 
 condolence and as a sign that their enemies had been 
 overcome. 
 
 154 
 
MAKING THE WILDERNESS BLOOM 
 
 In this case, after duly roasting, the cooked victim 
 was Tymen Bouwensz. The other bodies of the slain 
 natives they gave to cremation. The three dead 
 Dutchmen were buried together. One of the two 
 Portuguese, who tried to escape by swimming, was 
 hit by a shaft sped from an Indian archer. Though 
 wounded in the back, the swimmer succeeded in get¬ 
 ting away. 
 
 Here was a clear case of unwarranted intermed¬ 
 dling on the part of the foreigners; for later the Mo¬ 
 hawks solemnly declared that there was with them no 
 malice aforethought against the white men. Only a 
 few days after the fight, the skipper, Peter Barentz, 
 visited them, probably at their village of Schenec¬ 
 tady. On coming back, he reported that “they 
 wished to excuse their acts, on the plea that they 
 had never set themselves against the whites, and 
 asked the reason why the latter had meddled with 
 them; otherwise, they would not have shot them.” 
 
 Because of such dangers, between savage tribes 
 ever at war — though probably these dangers were 
 more imaginary than real — these pioneer Walloon 
 families were, after a while, removed for safety to 
 Manhattan. The Dutch Director, determined on suc¬ 
 cessful colonization, made a “concentration”; but 
 sometime afterwards, when the situation was fully 
 understood, probably most of them returned to their 
 first allotment. When fourscore years had passed, 
 the first-born baby girl, then an old woman, Cata¬ 
 lina Trico, testified that she had lived for three years 
 
 155 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 in Beverwyck, as this settlement was called, after its 
 chief staple, beaver fur, and during this time “the 
 Indians were as quiet as lambs.” 
 
 Modern science does not permit the scholar, who 
 has studied man in his evolution, to consider every¬ 
 thing in savage life, or among men without writing, 
 as necessarily or intrinsically lower than the stand¬ 
 ards of the white man. Nor can it even be proved 
 that the Indian, especially the Iroquois, was less 
 original than the white man’s own ancestors when in 
 the Stone Age. It is interesting to note that within 
 a short distance of the Walloons’ initial settlement 
 was the classic Tawasentha, the legendary home of 
 Hiawatha, the culture-father of the Iroquois, whom 
 Longfellow has celebrated. Close at hand, also, was 
 the beautiful valley of Norman’s Kill, where the 
 children, red and white, played together. 
 
 While the wijk, or town, was named after the 
 Beaver (which in Dutch is Bever), the usual local 
 term was the Fuyck (a bow-net), because, in its 
 shape, the new settlement resembled the bow-net or 
 fishtrap, then in common use, which kept fresh food 
 on their tables. It rhymes with wijk. 
 
 They were now in the country of the Mohicans, 
 whom Cooper was to glorify, and on the opposite 
 side of the river was one of the red men’s palisaded 
 structures. This site and neighborhood is the Green- 
 bush of to-day, and here in later times was the home 
 of “ Yankee Doodle.” The Mohicans were different 
 in blood and language from the Iroquois, but formed 
 
 156 
 
MAKING THE WILDERNESS BLOOM 
 
 a part of the great Algonquin community. This like 
 an ocean surrounded the island-like League of the 
 Five Nations of the Iroquois, whose habitat was at 
 that date comparatively small in area, though su¬ 
 perbly situated for defense or strategy. From their 
 great natural castle, on the ridge and western flats, 
 extending from Niagara to the Hudson, in the citadel 
 of America, with its forty-nine valleys, all admirable 
 sally ports, this agricultural community dominated 
 many tribes in every direction. 
 
 The advent of the European interrupted the evo¬ 
 lution of the native American, and in the main de¬ 
 flected its course in paths that meant degradation 
 and destruction. With firearms, the Iroquois were 
 already becoming expert gunmen and in time were 
 to terrorize the land, even to the menace of Mon¬ 
 treal. They carried their scalping knives beyond 
 the Connecticut River, on the one hand, and to 
 the Mississippi River on the other, but with fiery 
 liquor and new diseases under the persistent pres¬ 
 sure of the covetous white man, the red man lost 
 vastly more than he had gained. 
 
 Whether or not the newcomers brought cradles — 
 the very name is Celtic, or Walloon — we cannot 
 tell, but they soon had need of them. The little 
 Americans could not be carried on their mothers’ 
 backs, like papooses, or hung on trees to swing in 
 the breezes. They must the rather be content with 
 birch bark cradles, or those made from staves or 
 kegs with semicircular rockers, once part of the 
 
 157 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 heads of the kegs or barrels. Yet of all the babies 
 born on the American continent, dandled on mothers* 
 knees, or sung to sleep with lullabies; or pleased lit¬ 
 tle folks amused with rhymes, or the rattles of lan¬ 
 guage, or the lore of Santa Claas and of fairy folk, 
 not one set was more richly provided than the babies 
 in Nova Belgica; for no land is more affluent in leg¬ 
 ends of St. Nicholas and in the rhymes of the chil¬ 
 dren inviting or praising their patron saint, than is 
 that of the Belgic Netherlands. 
 
 Happily, though many historiographers, careless 
 scholars, many books, and even tablets of bronze 
 and stone, talk of the non-existent New Nether¬ 
 lands, when Nova Belgica was only one province of 
 the Republic, these early documents preserve for us 
 in text and speech the name Nieuw Nederlandt, or, 
 in English, New Netherland, and none of them makes 
 the mistake of calling a Domine a “dominie,’* for 
 the clerks and chroniclers knew their Latin too well. 
 The vocabulary of Scott’s novels had not yet led 
 astray the makers of dictionaries, whether Ameri¬ 
 can or English. Nor were Irving’s caricatures even 
 dreamed of, though the English, who owe such a vast 
 debt to the Dutch for their enrichment and civiliza¬ 
 tion, were too foolishly ready to look down on all 
 non-insulars and even Netherlanders as inferiors. 
 Nor at that date were the northern provinces of the 
 Republic spoken of as Holland — a misnomer that 
 has outlived the name-giver, Napoleon. 
 
 The coming of these pioneer Walloons in 1624 
 
 158 
 
MAKING THE WILDERNESS BLOOM 
 
 was as the first drops of a shower followed by rills, 
 yet uniting in one initial stream, which afterwards 
 joined with vastly greater affluents, making the 
 French Huguenot flood. The fact of French being 
 the first language spoken in the homes of our four 
 Middle States marks the beginning of American 
 taste in dress, household furnishing, table equip¬ 
 ment, personal adornment, and indulgence gener¬ 
 ally in aesthetic decoration, which differentiate us, 
 in these details, even from standards that are fixed 
 and notable in the British Isles. 
 
 The traveled American, visiting his ancestral 
 home in England, is not long in perceiving this. 
 Those of our sectional historians who keep up the 
 legend of unmixed English culture and follow the no¬ 
 tion that we are an English nation, do not see that 
 the founding of homes in New York, by the Wal¬ 
 loons, in 1624, was the protocol of a long school of 
 education in tastes. This distinguished the Ameri¬ 
 can and his home from the British, even though lan¬ 
 guage and innumerable inheritances come to us from 
 the dear Mother Land of Britain — where dwelt the 
 writer’s known and recorded ancestors, in the rec¬ 
 ords of the ninth century, and in England from the 
 time of the Norman invasion. Nor is it realized by 
 the general body of sectional writers that the fathers 
 of our religious liberty are, with Roger Williams, 
 Peter Minuit and William Penn, rather than either 
 the Pilgrims or the Puritans of New England. 
 
 The Walloons made perceptible contributions to 
 
 159 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 the civilization that was to blend many strains into 
 one. “Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea,” 
 we might say of what was in the gift-laden hands of 
 the French-speaking people. These came first from 
 the Belgic Netherlands, then from Walloon France, 
 and finally from nearly every one of the French 
 provinces and from the lands of exile. They brought 
 us many things for our enrichment in mental and 
 economic resources and the improvement of our 
 sensibilities. 
 
 On the finer side of life, their offerings are to this 
 day manifest. In the colonial era, the interiors even 
 of their frontier homes were neater and more attrac¬ 
 tive than those of the Dutch and English settlers. 
 Instead of thick woolen, coarse cloth, or dowdy stuff 
 at the windows, the glare of their “lights,” whether 
 of oiled parchment or greased paper, was tempered 
 and mellowed with dainty white linen. On the floor, 
 in place of sand and rushes, they spread textiles, 
 made of odds and ends of worn-out or discarded 
 clothing, or other dry goods. These, woven in their 
 looms, made what we call rag carpet — cheerful to 
 look at and pleasant for the feet to tread upon. 
 
 There was at first no need of rigid economy in 
 larder or on the table, when game was abundant and 
 flocks of wild pigeons darkened the sun. The forest 
 was then their storehouse, and the garden their pan¬ 
 try, while they looked to the hills whence came their 
 material help in herbs and simples. Afterwards, 
 they introduced and showed the town-dwellers many 
 
 160 
 
MAKING THE WILDERNESS BLOOM 
 
 a delicious morsel, and even the delights of ox¬ 
 tail soup. The Newtown pippin, the quince and 
 grape culture, and the first vineyards were de¬ 
 veloped from what the French-speaking colonists 
 brought over. Apples, as a rule, were grafted on In¬ 
 dian stocks. In our generation, it is only the native 
 varieties of berries and fruit, or those budded on the 
 aboriginal stalks or trunks, that have survived, or 
 improved with the centuries. Nevertheless, while 
 all were men of their time, the wilderness, the fron¬ 
 tier, and savage humanity had their influences upon 
 them; and these were early efficient in making one 
 new type of man, who could not be in full conformity 
 with Old World ideas, mental scope, or contempo¬ 
 rary environment. One can love dear Mother Eng¬ 
 land and her people and his own English ancestors, 
 without being afraid of either the facts or the truth 
 concerning others than British Islesmen who helped 
 to make the American composite. One can do this, 
 while detesting the European inheritances that still 
 linger from barbarism. Our forefathers were glad to 
 get rid of these, nor would have them in their new 
 home. In a word, the better England, the better 
 France, the better Belgium survived in America, 
 and the history of the United States rightly inter¬ 
 preted sheds glory on the old mother lands. 
 
 It needs no creative imagination to picture the 
 routine of life, on the ship of these initial home¬ 
 makers of our Middle States or in their new homes. 
 Daily prayer, the singing of Marot’s psalms, and 
 
 N 161 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 the training of the children in the first principles 
 of pure religion and morality, through the study of 
 the Catechism and the Creed (the Twelve Articles 
 of the Christian Faith), formed the routine of the 
 months at sea. Those who, like the writer, have 
 lived among the descendants of the Walloons, know¬ 
 ing them as intimate friends, as church officers, as 
 leaders in business and society, and sharing their 
 faith, inheritances, traditions, and ceremonies, can 
 at least enter into the spirit, while comprehending 
 the form of their life at home, on shipboard, and in 
 the wilderness. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 GOVERNOR PETER MINUIT 
 
 At whatever date Manhattan was settled with fam¬ 
 ilies, we know that Pierre Minuit, the Walloon, was 
 the first governor duly commissioned as such, in the 
 long and illustrious line of the executives in the Em¬ 
 pire State. 
 
 He was most probably one of those men who 
 loved his little joke. He often wrote his name 
 phonetically, to help people of six nations, Belgic, 
 French, German, Dutch, English, and Swedish, to 
 learn his other name besides Pierre, Pieter, Petrus, 
 or Peter. Those who knew no French had to be told 
 how to pronounce his name properly — not with 
 the final and hard dental, but with that “phonetic 
 decay” in which a Frenchman revels. Even his 
 autographs are found written Menuet, Minnuet, 
 Minnewit, Minnewitz, and Minnawee. 
 
 This was like the Pilgrim Fathers, who, when in 
 the Netherlands, signed their names in Hollandish, 
 which was done to help the clerks and business 
 men, who thought that English was only “broken 
 Dutch.” His real name, which was Peter Minuit, 
 may be read any morning, as one walks down Fifth 
 Avenue past the northwest corner of Twenty-ninth 
 Street, where stands the fourth edifice of the church 
 of 1628, in which he was an elder. There, also, is the 
 
 163 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 bell which later called the worshipers to service in 
 structures which have been successively wood, brick, 
 and marble. In these edifices, the first a horse mill, 
 have gathered for worship during many genera¬ 
 tions the members of the first fully organized church 
 in North America. It began on Manhattan, and un¬ 
 der the Walloon governor’s administration. 
 
 Who was Peter Minuit? 
 
 His father was pastor of a Walloon church at 
 Wesel, on the Rhine, about thirty miles east of the 
 Dutch frontier. To this city of refuge gathered 
 many hundreds of Belgic folk, who had fled when 
 Alva’s invaders entered their home land—all “ortho¬ 
 dox” and also “ Christians” — sent to hunt heretics. 
 Successive waves of refugees found calm in Wesel, 
 which of old was in the frontier of civilization and 
 which has had a wonderful history. It was from this 
 place that Charlemagne started upon his campaigns 
 against those pagan Saxons whom we of to-day 
 idealize almost to transfiguration. 
 
 The church built in the twelfth century in honor 
 of St. Willibrod, the great apostle to the Germans, 
 who had died a.d. 738, stood in this city. 
 
 In 1 555 » when the structure had become by age 
 “a ruin under a roof,” the English exiles, fleeing 
 from Bloody Mary’s persecution, arrived at Wesel. 
 Within the ancient walls, a baby boy of the pilgrim 
 father and mother, Willoughby d’Eresby and Cath¬ 
 erine, Duchess of Suffolk, was born. A pilgrim and a 
 stranger like his parents, he was here baptized. He 
 
 164 
 
GOVERNOR PETER MINUIT 
 
 was christened and named, as was the White baby 
 of the Mayflower, Peregrine, or pilgrim, his added 
 name being Bertie. Many English exiles christened 
 their infants with this name, Peregrine. Others, 
 like Moses, named a son Gershom, that is, driven 
 out, in token of their expulsion from their native 
 land. 
 
 Shortly after this date, but more numerously from 
 1567, the Belgic Netherlanders flocked into the 
 Duchy of Cleves and the city of Wesel. Stripped of 
 their goods, many found domicile within the walls of 
 the old church. To the pastor of these refugees was 
 born a son, Pierre or Peter, the future governor of 
 Nova Belgica. 
 
 Five items of glad news, one after another, cheered 
 these lonely exiles. In 1609, Henry Hudson returned 
 from his discovery of an unoccupied and lovely vir¬ 
 gin land beyond sea. It lay between the two rivers 
 which we call the Delaware and the Hudson. In 
 1613 this new, or eighth, province of the Dutch Re¬ 
 public received its geographical name, New Nether- 
 land. In 1619, the Dutch Union cause triumphed. 
 In 1621, the West India Company, for the coloniza¬ 
 tion of America, was formed. In 1623, Jesse de For¬ 
 est and his company from Leyden were to be given 
 free passage to the new land, which two years later, 
 in 1626, was to have a civil government and be 
 named (Terra) Nova Belgica. 
 
 Until 1664, many Walloons left Wesel for America 
 by way of Rotterdam. This Rhine region became 
 
 165 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 later the scene of war in which an English army took 
 part. While the Mayflower was on her ocean way, 
 Sir Horace Vere with his brave soldiers, acting with 
 the German allies, was holding the Spaniards at 
 bay; as usual, the Walloons and Huguenots suffered 
 and were again scattered. During the Thirty Years’ 
 War, thousands of these doubly exiled Walloons fled 
 into the Dutch Republic, some to remain, but many 
 to cross the Atlantic. 
 
 Later on, in 1688, Louis XIV, infuriated because 
 Germany gave shelter to the Huguenots, whom his 
 minions had hunted out like vermin and driven from 
 their home land, sent his armies to ravage this Rhine 
 region called the Palatinate. This they did, exactly 
 as did the Germans in France and Belgium, from 
 1914 to 1918. One war usually breeds another. In¬ 
 vaded nations have long memories. 
 
 On December 19, 1625, the ship named the Little 
 Sea Mew, having on board Governor Minuit and his 
 secretary, Isaac de Rasieres, with the new province’s 
 seal denoting that New Netherland was organized 
 with a civil government under the name of Nova 
 Belgica, started from the Weeper’s Tower in Am¬ 
 sterdam to pass northward through the Texel. The 
 people from this island, when at home named the 
 Van Texels, were in America called the Van Tassels 
 — as all who have read Washington Irving’s ro¬ 
 mances may know, and as the honored names in the 
 Tarry town church records show. 
 
 Yet the governor’s patience was sorely tried, for 
 
 166 
 
GOVERNOR PETER MINUIT 
 
 he and his were kept a month in the Zuyder Zee be¬ 
 cause of the ice. No doubt sailors and passengers 
 whiled away part of the time with their skates, sleds, 
 ice yachts, and various winter sports; all of which, 
 besides having Dutch names, were introduced into 
 New Netherland and are with us to-day in New 
 York and New Jersey. Minuit’s title was Director- 
 General of New Netherland. He arrived May 4, 
 1626.. 
 
 The threefold functions of government, as differ¬ 
 entiated by Isaiah (xxxm. 22) first, and Aristotle af¬ 
 ter him, into executive, legislative, and judicial, were 
 not yet formulated in the new colony, but in Nova 
 Belgica, Minuit had to act in all three capacities. 
 Not yet was evolved that wonderful system of 
 checks and balances which, in the government of 
 the United States, makes the complex political ma¬ 
 chinery work so well. Associated with the governor 
 were also a council, a schout-fischal, or treasurer, 
 and the secretary, Isaac de Rasieres. 
 
 The oldest known documents in' the archives of 
 the Empire and Keystone States, are those which re¬ 
 cord that in the first instance a Walloon, and in the 
 second, the son of a Dutch mother, made treaties of 
 peace with the Indians and paid for the land which 
 they and their people were to occupy. There is the 
 bill of sale of Manhattan, which, with the sufficing 
 brevity of a telegram, yet with sufficient details, 
 tells the double story. Yet this purchase of land on 
 Manhattan was not understood by the Indians to 
 
 167 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 cover the entire island , 1 nor did it mark “the birth 
 of New York City.” The transaction was a prelimi¬ 
 nary for all New Netherland. From this time forth, 
 settlers obtained valid land titles. 
 
 The ship returning to Patria carried good news 
 from the island and also from “up the river,” show¬ 
 ing that Mother Earth had done her part in making 
 the wilderness bloom and in providing food for man; 
 while in the homes the cradles rocked with new 
 treasures, when the first babies, a boy and a girl, be¬ 
 gan what was for each of them a long life voyage. 
 “Corn” in those very early days did not mean 
 maize — then called in Europe, where it was a curi¬ 
 osity, “Turkish wheat.” In truth, it took some time 
 for the white man to learn from the natives the fine 
 art of its cultivation, its proper culinary prepara¬ 
 tion, and the gustatory delights, consequent upon 
 its correct treatment, by roasting, boiling, or mixing 
 with beans in succotash, which even yet Europe 
 scarcely knows. In Britain, without our hot Ameri¬ 
 can summers, Indian corn scarcely reaches the 
 height of a yardstick, by October. In Nova Belgica, 
 rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary seed, and beans 
 well supplied the larder for man, fowl, and beast, in 
 preparation for winter’s needs. 
 
 Among the live things of glory and beauty, awak¬ 
 ening sweet memories of the old home, was the blue 
 flax flower. Of the glossy silk-like fiber in the stalk, 
 the women soon began to make linen and much 
 1 See Riker’s History of Harlem for full proof of this. 
 
 168 
 
GOVERNOR PETER MINUIT 
 
 later, carpet, lace, and tapestry. Even in these early 
 days, the Walloons excelled the Dutch and English 
 in the daintiness of indoor furnishing. 
 
 No mythical and few genuine articles of furniture, 
 brought over on the early ships from the Nether¬ 
 lands, were seen, for example, in the famous loan ex¬ 
 hibition in Schenectady in 1880; but dainty products 
 in lace and linen, made even in early frontier days by 
 the pioneer Walloons, were in trustworthy evidence. 
 Of cake moulds and things smaller in bulk and easily 
 portable, however, there were many. 
 
 The terse document which tells of the purchase of 
 Manhattan states also that, besides what the vege¬ 
 table world furnished, the animals that paid tribute 
 for man’s clothing, in a way that was to fill the cof¬ 
 fers of the home land directors and the pockets of 
 the merchants, served for barter. Even before this 
 date, the beaver’s effigy had entered heraldry as a 
 welcome newcomer and was on the seal of Nova Bel- 
 gica. For a century afterward, this animal, repre¬ 
 senting both value and the production of value, was 
 the symbol and the standard of currency, the actual 
 pelt serving in place of coin. It was fitting that the 
 settlement on the frontier of the colony at the head 
 of river navigation, where Albany now stands, 
 should be named “Beverwijk” (Beverwyck). 
 
 Governor Minuit did not wait long before attend¬ 
 ing to the courtesies proper among Christians. He 
 wrote a letter to Plymouth and closed with expres¬ 
 sion of sincere piety, commending to God’s grace 
 
 169 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 and favor the “High and Mighty Lords” of the 
 Company, using the “complimental titles” of which 
 Bradford tells us. 
 
 If monarchs boasted of their power in high-sound¬ 
 ing terms of praise and in self-glorification, why 
 should not republicans do the same? In the attri¬ 
 butes and customs of autocracy or royalty, in 
 whatever was worth imitating, the Dutch asserted 
 equality by trumpet, flag, costume, badge of office, 
 and in rhetoric, document, and fact. Hence their 
 titles! Especially when on land and sea they had 
 humbled Spain, and even by colonizing the conti¬ 
 nent claimed by His Most Christian Majesty —- 
 who so delighted in roasting his subjects — did the 
 Dutch “put on airs.” Most fittingly, also, did their 
 legislators call themselves “Their High Mighti¬ 
 nesses.” 
 
 Among the most assuring items of news in the man¬ 
 ifest of this initial ship, outward bound from what 
 is now the world’s greatest port and freighted with 
 the first official document from New Netherland, 
 was the report of the friendliness of the Indians 
 — harbinger of the success of the Walloon venture. 
 This was the dayspring of the full glory of possession 
 by the Empire State of the largest store in America 
 of wampum belts, seals, and signs of justice to the 
 Indian and the perpetuity of his friendship. 
 
 Nearly two centuries after the schout-fischal had 
 appraised, in guilders, with perhaps stivers and cents 
 thrown in, the market value of the Manhattan of 
 
 170 
 
GOVERNOR PETER MINUIT 
 
 1624, in his report to “John Company,” Alexander 
 Hamilton continued Peter Minuit’s work. This de¬ 
 scendant of Huguenots and America’s greatest arch¬ 
 itect of government, adopted for Americans, in the 
 States gathered in a federal republic (e pluribiis 
 unum ), their financial system. Under the old Dutch 
 flag, with six more stripes, and stars thirteen added, 
 Hamilton gave us what was essentially the Dutch 
 decimal system, with dalers (dollars), cents, and 
 mills. 
 
 The old Teutonic arrangement of pounds, shil¬ 
 lings, and denarii (£ s. d.) — which system meant 
 varying standards of value in the different colonies 
 — was rejected. A simpler arrangement, virtually 
 that of the Netherlands, was adopted, though the 
 Spanish symbol for dollars — the gates of Hercules 
 ($) — was retained. Even in the writer’s boyhood, 
 the Spanish coins, the “two-pillared” silver dol¬ 
 lar, the “levy” (eleven cents), and the “fip” (five- 
 pence), were in general circulation. The guilder is 
 now equal to four dimes, or eight nickels, or forty 
 American cents. 
 
 Evidently Minuit was a man of energy, who de¬ 
 sired to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly 
 with God”; but he had enemies who slandered him; 
 for the love of money was strong among the adven¬ 
 turers who began to flock in. Minuit’s idea was to 
 discover and develop to the full the resources of the 
 new land. He found unusually large and fine timber 
 in the region of the Mohawk, and so, utilizing some 
 
 171 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 of the ship carpenters — probably fellow believers 
 from Sweden, though all men from lands north of the 
 Netherlands were called “Normans” by the Dutch 
 — he built one of the largest seaworthy vessels of the 
 time. It was pierced to carry thirty guns, for trading 
 and fighting usually went together in those days. It 
 crossed the ocean — being probably the first “liner” 
 from America and from the Netherlands — and af¬ 
 ter exciting wonder for its size and excellent struc¬ 
 ture, was long used for trade in the West Indies. 
 
 The home directors, however, complained that 
 this ship cost too much, which meant most probably 
 that they wanted “quick returns ”; that is, more rev¬ 
 enue from the fur trade and easy money in their 
 pockets. In fact, they were not very anxious that the 
 colonists should be too enterprising, lest they might 
 develop ambition to trade on their own account. 
 
 Minuit was too much of “a people’s man” to suit 
 a corporation, the first and last idea of which was 
 ‘ 1 dividends. ’ ’ The non-stockholders who were not di¬ 
 rect agents of the home corporation were supposed 
 never to trade, but only to serve and till the soil. 
 Like many capitalists in our time, “John Company” 
 and the patroons were generous in providing for the 
 colonists’ comfort, thus aiming to secure good work¬ 
 ing and richly productive animals; but, from meas¬ 
 ures for the making and development of manhood 
 and noble citizenship, they preferred to be excused. 
 
 All evidence seems to show that the same greedy 
 men, of the same type of mind, with the“ get-rich- 
 
 172 
 
GOVERNOR PETER MINUIT 
 
 quick” spirit, dominated the factions in the Dutch 
 West India Company as prevailed also in the 
 English corporation which had equipped the May¬ 
 flower, but also virtually fettered if they did not en¬ 
 slave the Pilgrims, while putting a veto on Robin¬ 
 son’s ever reaching America. “Nature takes out of 
 the man what she puts into the chest.” In due time 
 the Dutch West India went to financial smash. 
 
 The same data of information seem to prove that 
 Governor Minuit was more earnest for justice to be 
 meted out to the settlers than in currying favor with 
 the corporation. At any rate, nepotism prevailed in 
 the Amsterdam office. Minuit was recalled, and a 
 Director’s nephew, a clerk from one of the Com¬ 
 pany’s desks, was put in his place. In hostile tradi¬ 
 tion, he stands without much character, brains, or 
 experience, but with an excessive love and capacity 
 for liquor. Wouter Van Twiller, who was sent in the 
 place of the competent governor Minuit, furnished 
 Washington Irving a fitting figure for his caricatures. 
 Nevertheless, except when and where shackled by 
 the Company’s strict orders, Van Twiller was full of 
 youth, fire, and energy in his acts. Until the new Di¬ 
 rector-General arrived, Sebastian Krol (pronounced 
 krull), church elder, from whom the toothsome 
 “cruller” — so tradition avers — took its name, had 
 charge of affairs. In the years after 1664, the Direc- 
 tors-General of New Netherland were called by the 
 English “Governors.” 
 
 On reaching Europe and knowing that many of his 
 
 173 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 industrious and enterprising fellow Walloons were in 
 Sweden, Peter Minuit sought and was offered service 
 by Oxenstierna, the great Swedish Chancellor of Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus, who directed the policy of Sweden 
 during the Thirty Years’ War, and who was then in 
 the Dutch Republic. At his instigation, Minuit led a 
 colony of Swedes and Finns into the Delaware val¬ 
 ley. The world knows their history and the Luther¬ 
 ans and Episcopalians their church life, while many 
 of the names in the Philadelphia and Wilmington 
 city directories still recall those of Scandinavian an¬ 
 cestors. Their church edifices, yet standing on the 
 historic spots, from which the large part of the two 
 cities have grown away, bear witness to the piety, 
 taste, and prosperity of these Swedes, Finns, and 
 Walloons. 
 
 It was to the glorious old church edifice, new in 
 1700 but now much altered in form, standing in the 
 leafy and woody Indian village of Wecaco, in the 
 southern part of the City of Brotherly Love, where 
 the singing birds were so plentiful, that Longfellow, 
 our poet of Huguenot descent, tells us Evangeline 
 came. In the once octagonal brick church of Gloria 
 Dei — which the writer as a child often attended, 
 part of his infancy and early childhood being spent 
 in Swanson Street on land purchased of a Swede of 
 that name, by William Penn — the beautiful ritual 
 of the Book of Common Prayer is still read on Sab¬ 
 bath days. 
 
 The world still waits for the poet, the painter, and 
 
 174 
 
GOVERNOR PETER MINUIT 
 
 the sculptor to interpret in terms of art the story 
 of both the Swedes and the Walloons. 
 
 When in Nova Belgica, during his six years' ad¬ 
 ministration Peter Minuit, by his spirit and through 
 his inheritances, showed himself a lover of freedom 
 and more in sympathy with human beings than with 
 soulless corporations. He was disgusted with the 
 grasping spirit of the monopolists at home and of 
 those greedy seizers of land in the colony, whom he 
 often checkmated. He was so much of a people’s 
 man, that he was dismissed because of his too great 
 sympathy with his fellow Christians and the colo¬ 
 nists in general. He protected them as far as possible 
 against unscrupulous men in “big business.” 
 
 This son of a Huguenot minister was the precur¬ 
 sor of another minister’s son, a later champion of 
 the lower classes, Jacob Leisler, who appeared in his¬ 
 tory when most sorely needed. Against the spirit of 
 feudalism, both Dutch and English, that hindered 
 the normal growth of New Netherland and New 
 York, it was well for future America that she had 
 two such men, who were, like Lincoln, assertors of 
 the rights of the plain people, whom “God must 
 have loved, because He made so many of them.” 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 SECRETARY ISAAC DE RASIERES 
 
 There are men and women who make their names 
 famous in history by doing one thing. In the Bible 
 there are many single-line biographies. They may 
 write a poem, paint a picture, say a grand word, do 
 a good act, or in a sentence reveal some short cut 
 to knowledge. Perhaps at the time they may think 
 that they are acting only in commonplace routine, 
 doing nothing out of the ordinary program of each 
 day’s work. They might even “blush to find it 
 fame.” The results, of which the world takes notice, 
 may be unknown to them, or follow long after they 
 have passed away. They come to honor and know it 
 not. After centuries of oblivion, a grateful people 
 may summon genius to glorify their names, in paint¬ 
 ing, statue, memorial, or tablet. In the world’s Hall 
 of Fame are many Marys of low degree and Josephs 
 raised from the pit. “History is a resurrection.” 
 
 Such undoubtedly was the feeling of many of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers. Neither they nor the Mothers 
 knew anything of “the trumpet that sings of fame.” 
 Of the Unknown Soldier, who died in the Great War, 
 we may say this also, as over his dust, “in the 
 grave’s democracy,” kings bow their heads and sa¬ 
 lute him as one of those of whom the poet sings: 
 
 “On Fame’s eternal camping-ground 
 Their snow-white tents are spread.” 
 
 176 
 
SECRETARY ISAAC DE RASIERES 
 
 One of such, among the Walloon pioneers in New 
 Belgic Land, was the secretary of its first governor. 
 He served well his chief and his masters in the West 
 India Company. In addition to routine duties, he 
 made a visit to old friends and neighbors in Leyden, 
 the English Separatists at Plymouth, Massachu¬ 
 setts, to bear the Christian greetings of the governor 
 of Nova Belgica and his fellow colonists of like faith 
 and hope. 
 
 The letter of Isaac de Rasieres, written in 1628, to 
 his friend and well-wisher, Samuel Blommaert, who 
 lived in Amsterdam, gives what no other writing of 
 the time has done; that is, a detailed picture of the 
 social and Sabbath life of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. 
 Incidentally, it reveals to us why, in America, the 
 man in church still sits at the end of the pew nearest 
 the aisle, in which, during colonial days, muskets 
 were stacked for quick use in case of Indian attack. 
 De Rasieres' painting in ink and words is as minute 
 and fascinating as that in oil and on canvas of the 
 Flemish artist Ostade, for it is full of lively details. 
 His account of the church parade, led by Elder 
 Brewster and Miles Standish, stirs us like a bugle 
 blast, or the beat of drums. From de Rasieres’ de¬ 
 scription George H. Boughton painted his famous 
 picture. 
 
 To Governor Peter Minuit’s letter Governor 
 Bradford replied with equal courtesy and in the 
 spirit of Christian brotherhood, writing in both 
 Dutch and English. 
 
 177 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 t 
 
 De Rasieres penned his letter on the 26th of Sep¬ 
 tember, 1626, outside Fort Amsterdam, on Manhat¬ 
 tan, in Nova Belgica, and in what some called New 
 Avesnes, or New Avennes, on the plantation of Old 
 Jan Lampo and Cornelis Van Voorst. It was north 
 of Canal Street, where now stand lofty skyscrapers 
 and edifices of steel and stone. We must remember 
 that it was “Fort Amsterdam’' first, instead of New 
 Amsterdam, in Nova Belgica, and that America’s 
 mighty metropolis is an evolution from a fortress. 
 In February, 1653, the village became the city of 
 New Amsterdam. 
 
 The name “ New Amsterdam,” as the seal shows, 
 was not in common use until 1654. The Walloons 
 often spoke of the Manhattan settlement as “New 
 Avesnes.” De Rasieres’ letter, giving us his first 
 impression of the new Dutch province, its land¬ 
 marks, its waters, its general features, its men and 
 women, native and immigrant, is wonderfully vivid. 
 
 The Walloon secretary’s second visit to Plym¬ 
 outh resulted in the introduction to New England 
 of wampum, or Indian shell currency. This gave the 
 English settlers a tremendous pecuniary advantage, 
 helping them, by making trade more brisk and fac¬ 
 ile, to pay off their debts and gain financial inde¬ 
 pendence. In the English colonies, wampum became 
 the standard of value and of exchange, remaining so 
 during more than a century. 
 
 De Rasieres’ letter lay in the national archives 
 at The Hague, until Dr. Eckhof of Leyden found, 
 
 •178 
 
SECRETARY ISAAC DE RASIERES 
 
 retranslated, and published it, in 1919, and wrote 
 a biography of the prosperous secretary, who used 
 French and Dutch equally well. 
 
 What were the chief events in the life of de Ra- 
 sieres? Weknowthatin 1628 hewastoofat to be fond 
 of a long walk, as Bradford tells us. From the great 
 “ Dutch Biographical Dictionary,” vol. V, published 
 in December, 1921, we learn that de Rasieres was 
 born a day or two before October 15, 1595, at Mid- 
 delburg, and was baptized in the Reformed Church. 
 He was therefore four years younger than Bradford, 
 who, even more than his Manhattan correspondent 
 and visitor, had reason to remember this city, the 
 “old home of freedom,” — and of many Walloon 
 refugees— as is told about in “ The Young People’s 
 History of the Pilgrims.” Quite possibly de Ra¬ 
 sieres used to know Bradford, the Pilgrim historian, 
 at Leyden, as well as in Massachusetts. The secre¬ 
 tary’s father was Laurens de Rasieres, most prob¬ 
 ably a Belgic refugee, and the way of his fortune 
 was in the sea. On July 7, 1618, Isaac’s brother 
 Abraham was supercargo of the ship Sea Wolf. 
 
 Isaac, the boy, lost his mother, and in 1605 his 
 father married again, taking as his bride Anna l’Her- 
 mite, of Antwerp, daughter of a Walloon mercantile 
 family. When, in 1624, Isaac was thirty years old 
 and then unmarried, he was appointed Secretary of 
 Nova Belgica. He sailed in the ship Arms of Am¬ 
 sterdam (Het Wapen van Amsterdam), and arrived 
 in America July 26, 1625. He was present officially 
 
 179 / 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 with Governor Minuit, on September 23, 1626, at 
 the purchase of Manhattan. 
 
 According to the requirements of the West India 
 Company’s charter, which definitely stipulated that 
 the natives must be paid for the land which any 
 Dutch colony occupied, Manhattan — meaning a 
 place between two rivers — was occupied with the 
 good will of the natives. They were satisfied, not 
 with coin, which had no meaning or value to the In¬ 
 dian, but with articles of use and adornment, such as 
 knives and beads, of which they were delighted to 
 get possession. Subsequent history also showed that 
 in the minds of the natives the northern half, beyond 
 the fort and farms, was not included in the sale, as 
 is told, in detail, in Riker’s admirable “ History of 
 Harlem.” 
 
 Evidently Isaac made several voyages over the 
 Atlantic to North and South America. He returned 
 to Holland and in 1633 he courted and led to the al¬ 
 tar in marriage, Eva Bartels, a young lady twenty- 
 four years of age, niece of the Walloon Jean Raye, 
 one of the West India Company’s officers. The wed¬ 
 ding was in the French or Walloon church, and 
 registry was duly made for the city archives. 
 
 On this occasion, as at all weddings in the Nether¬ 
 lands, there was gathered a collection for the poor. 
 It was even a part of the covenant between man and 
 wife, as set down in the ritual, as the writer knows, 
 from long use of the Netherlands Marriage Form. A 
 bride in the old or in the new Belgica hardly felt that 
 
 180 
 
SECRETARY ISAAC DE RASIERES 
 
 she was married, unless she heard the coin jingle for 
 others. 
 
 Not liking to serve under the blunderer, Wouter 
 Van Twiller, “by merit raised to that bad emi¬ 
 nence” of folly — the same of whom Washington 
 Irving makes so much deserved fun — Mr. and 
 Mrs. Isaac de Rasieres made “a hazard of new for¬ 
 tune” by going to Brazil, where her family was 
 in the profitable sugar business. In those days, a 
 Dutchman could get rich much more quickly in 
 South, than in North America. Yet on the sea, busi¬ 
 ness between the Netherlanders and the Portuguese 
 was as much a matter of fighting as of trading. “ Bills 
 of exchange,” in those days, were likely to be in the 
 form of cannon balls; for the Iberian nations, to 
 which a papal bull had given the two halves of the 
 “heathen” world for an inheritance, still clung to 
 the idea of the infallibility of the edicts issued from 
 the city on the Tiber, at which the Dutch scoffed. 
 
 In South America sons were born to him. Laurens 
 de Rasieres was named after the boy-baby’s grand¬ 
 father. He saw the light in 1636, was baptized April 
 19, but died in 1641. In 1639, a second son took his 
 name, Isaac, from his father. To his third son was 
 given the name of Laurens. 
 
 Prosperity followed the ex-secretary of Nova Bel- 
 gica, for he owned three sugar mills, to which he 
 gave the names “Amstel,” “Middelburg,” and “the 
 Rasieres.” In 1651 and 1654 he was living in Hol¬ 
 land, doubtless enjoying his fortune made in sugar. 
 
 181 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Later, we find him visiting Barbados, in the West 
 Indies, and here his son Laurens married Aletta van 
 Hontum. Of this couple, bride and groom (“bei- 
 der,” or both together), the portrait was painted, at 
 Brussels, by the great artist Nicholas Maes. The 
 family tradition is that Isaac was also governor of 
 Tabago, which is fifteen miles from the Panama 
 Canal zone. All this we know from Dr. Eckhof’s 
 researches published in 1919. 
 
 With William Bradford and some wise men, we 
 believe that “letters are the best part of history.’ 1 
 Certainly, in place of the long speeches which 
 most ancient and some modern historians put in 
 the mouths of the characters described by them, 
 we should rather have from “all the hands that 
 wrought” the missives which they penned. Would 
 that there had been, in earliest colonial days, more 
 writers of what the French call in painting genre , 
 that is, not of history, landscape, theology, or eco¬ 
 nomics, but of human incidents, events and affairs; 
 and that their penwork were still extant! Such 
 survivals would save us from many of the later mon¬ 
 strosities of partisanship, which both deface and 
 defile the fair visage of truth, in what is called 
 most unworthily “history.” Nor would we so often 
 read into the records of centuries ago the ideas cur¬ 
 rent in our own times. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 FOOD FOR THE SOUL 
 
 In Nova Belgica, though their feet were set on the 
 new continent, the Walloon Christians at first had 
 no church of their own. Yet there was daily food for 
 the soul, in family worship, instruction in the cate¬ 
 chism, prayer and song in the household, for in their 
 faith they laid emphasis on religion in the home. 
 The very essence of the Calvinistic form of religion 
 lies in instruction and actual experience. As in 
 chemistry the “nascent” moment of the release of 
 an element is the most potent, so is it also in church 
 history. Catechizing means teaching, by word of 
 mouth, through question and answer, the great 
 truths of faith and duty, in a simple form suitable 
 for young people. 
 
 So also to-day, the missionary of Reformed reli¬ 
 gion, in teaching the good news of God — the mes¬ 
 sage of love from our Father in Heaven — begins at 
 once to translate the Bible into the language of the 
 people, thus making both allegiance to the Founder 
 and the active exercise of faith and reason a supreme 
 duty and a joy. In other forms of propagation, the 
 method is by pictures, crosses, medals, or other sym¬ 
 bols, while allegiance to the Church is insisted upon 
 as peremptory and supreme. The former process 
 goes to the roots of life and rebuilds a nation. On the 
 
 183 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 “‘foreign” field, the second method does not greatly 
 disturb the old order of things. It is the religion of 
 reality, more than of symbols, and even more than 
 wars and bloodshed, trade and commerce, that has 
 recreated Japan, China, and the other nations of 
 Asia. 
 
 Such was the law and custom in the early primi¬ 
 tive Church. When, however, religion became a sys¬ 
 tem of symbols, ritual, autocracy and a political en¬ 
 gine, with power centralized at one place, with one 
 bishop, the catechizing or teaching of children was 
 gradually and in large measure given up, the rite of 
 confirmation taking its place. Instead of brother¬ 
 hood, democracy, and personal inward experience, 
 there were imposed the outward clamps of authority. 
 
 In other words, the power of the individual and 
 the family was taken away and put into the hands of 
 a caste, or corporation, which could control all hu¬ 
 man life, from the cradle to the grave. The old 
 apostolic declarations, “ye are a royal priesthood,” 
 and that the “elders” of the church at Ephesus were 
 also “bishops,” were ignored. Instead of systematic, 
 intelligent moral training, there were confirmations, 
 and instead of an inward change, pretty dresses, 
 chaplets of flowers, “first communion” celebrations 
 by children in only “one kind,” that is, bread soaked 
 in wine, which was given from the hands of a priest, 
 in place of, as in earlier days — before the clerical 
 caste was formed — all being equal at one table. 
 These were but a few of the many changes from 
 
 184 
 

 
 n 
 
 m 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 « t im felt? o m t mm p s 
 ?o r^itiiT.uwtlt.R'^inTi 
 
 stilt fiHtoHsKrtfcmfc iSI-itsl 
 
 * Y-: 
 
 . 
 
 >:♦ 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 % ■ 
 
 
 
 
 TABLET ON THE LAW SCHOOL OF NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, WASH¬ 
 INGTON SQUARE, NEW YORK, IN HONOR OF THE DUTCH AND 
 WALLOON TEACHERS IN NOVA BELGICA, OR NEW NETHERLAND 
 
 Erected, 1909 
 

 I 
 
 
FOOD FOR THE SOUL 
 
 early Christianity, which the Reformed thought un¬ 
 warrantable. 
 
 All Christian catechisms are and must be based, 
 first of all, upon the Ten Commandments — the 
 moral law; the Lord’s Prayer — center of all devo¬ 
 tions; and then, more or less, on the so-called 
 “Apostles’ Creed”; or, as the Walloons and Dutch 
 called it, “The Twelve Articles of the Christian 
 Faith.” This last is theology, that is, the adjustment 
 of what men know to what they believe; or, in the 
 many changes of meaning which words undergo, the 
 harmony of what men believe with what they say 
 they know, or at least apprehend. 
 
 Of all catechisms made at the time of the Reforma¬ 
 tion, or later, that of Luther is the simplest and best 
 fitted for a child. Yet it has the grave defect of fol¬ 
 lowing the Roman plan of omitting the second com¬ 
 mandment and splitting the tenth into two parts. 
 Instead of the phrase “The Holy Catholic Church” 
 is substituted “The Holy Christian Church.” 
 
 Calvin’s catechism is fuller and more logical than 
 Luther’s, but is not so well fitted for the minds of 
 children. Hence, in time, it was superseded by the 
 Heidelberg and Westminster Catechisms and other 
 forms of statements of Christian belief, put in 
 question and answer. Yet for a long time Calvin’s 
 catechism was the only one used in the Walloon 
 churches. In fact, this was decided upon at the 
 Synod of Wesel in 1568. At the very time when 
 the Spaniard in the Netherlands was imitating the 
 
 185 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Turk, in his method of propagating religion by fire 
 and sword, the Reformed Walloons at Wesel made 
 choice of both the gospel and the method of the 
 Founder; that is, by spiritual instruction. This also 
 meant reality in place of symbols; or, personal ex¬ 
 perience in the individual soul, instead of the mere 
 fiat of authority. 
 
 One notable fact is, that at the very beginning 
 of the Reformation, the great men and teachers 
 thought it worth while to devote their time, talents, 
 and care to the children and without regard to sex. 
 In this, Christianity differs, by a mighty contrast, 
 from the other great religions of the Buddha and of 
 Mahomet. One has only to read the Koran and 
 “The Sacred Books of the East,” to see these 
 religions in action and to discern this clearly. 
 Among the oldest of Christian paintings in the cata¬ 
 combs of Rome is that of the Good Shepherd bear¬ 
 ing a lamb on his shoulders. One of the initial hymns 
 of the Christian Church, as translated by Henry 
 M. Dexter, begins, “Shepherd of tender youth.” 
 
 In the American wilderness, the Walloons, tired of 
 fighting wild beasts in the spiritual Ephesus of Eu¬ 
 rope, found nothing worse in their new environment. 
 For, until stirred up by political and religious hatred 
 emanating from French Canada, or maddened by 
 the white man’s poisons or aggressions, the Indians 
 were friendly. Though Nature confronted them 
 with perils, she offered also allurements and rewards. 
 
 For “provisions to sustain the mind” and feed 
 
 186 
 
FOOD FOR THE SOUL 
 
 their souls, they had their precentor, who led the 
 song and who read sermons. The beautiful liturgy 
 of the Reformed Church was used then, more than 
 in later years, when the sermon occupied so large a 
 place and so long a time in the service. There was 
 also the Visitor, or Comforter of the Sick, who came 
 with consolation to the needy with the passages of 
 scripture already selected — a form of service orig¬ 
 inally prepared by Caspar van der Heyden, at the 
 Synod of Embden in 1571. It was this form of con¬ 
 solation that the great John of Barneveldt had read 
 to him, just before being led to execution, declar¬ 
 ing that in this confession of faith he was willing 
 to die. 
 
 At every morning worship, the Ten Command¬ 
 ments were read either by the Lector or by the pas¬ 
 tor, and usually commented upon. There was no 
 idea in the Huguenot mind of formality, mere rou¬ 
 tine, or custom in partaking of holy communion. 
 There must be preparation and searching of heart, 
 as to whether the guests at the Lord’s Table, be¬ 
 sides “being received in mercy,” were accounted 
 “worthy partakers of this heavenly meat and 
 drink.” In a word, the preponderant idea was ethi¬ 
 cal and spiritual, rather than mere adherence to 
 church rules. 
 
 Yet on the whole, as centuries slipped by and per¬ 
 secution was but a memory, the tendency in the Re¬ 
 formed churches was from the old “ congregational- 
 ity” to “ministeriality.” The Domine attained a 
 
 187 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 disproportionate importance, while the individual 
 church member was too much inclined to excuse 
 himself and let the parson do the work. In time, the 
 reformed needed reforming, for the springs dried 
 up, and, on “ the principle of the crust,” religious life 
 became too much an outward matter of routine. So 
 forth came the “Quakers,” the “Methodists,” the 
 “New Lights,” and others, whose stigma was, in the 
 end, glorious, and whose nicknames turned to titles 
 of honor. 
 
 The pioneer Walloons in Nova Belgica did not 
 have to wait many years for a pastor. When he 
 came, in 1628, the first completely organized church 
 in America took its being on Manhattan. The Dom- 
 ine, that is, a pastor with authority, not a “domi¬ 
 nie ” — which is a Scotch title, meaning a schoolmas¬ 
 ter— was the Reverend Jonas Michaelius. Bom in 
 1577, he was a graduate of Leyden University, in the 
 class that matriculated September 6, 1600. At least 
 the name of Joannes Michaelius is in the list for that 
 year. It is most probable that in his college days 
 he knew, in Leyden, some of those Walloons who 
 later, in 1623, emigrated to America. Michaelius 
 married in 1612. After Christian work in the Dutch 
 colony in Brazil, he returned to Holland in 1627. 
 Entering the service of the West India Company, 
 he sailed out of the Texel, with his wife and three 
 children, for America. 
 
 The two letters of Michaelius sent home from 
 Manhattan are among the most graphic and de- 
 
 188 
 
FOOD FOR THE SOUL 
 
 tailed sources of authority for the earliest history of 
 the pioneers and founders of the Empire State. Af¬ 
 ter seven weeks in their new American home, his 
 children were left motherless by the decease of his 
 wife, in June, 1628. How pathetic those first graves 
 of Christian exiles at Plymouth and on Manhat¬ 
 tan! 
 
 Michselius formed inside the fort the mother 
 church, which is now housed in two edifices, the one 
 on Fifth Avenue at Twenty-ninth Street and the 
 other at Forty-seventh Street, with many daughters 
 all united under one Collegiate body, or Consistory. 
 Fifty communicants sat down to the Eucharist, and 
 Michaelius read the tender and beautiful words of 
 the “Form Preparatory to the Lord’s Supper ,” 
 which came from the pen of John Calvin. In the 
 congregation were many Walloons, and the two 
 church elders in the Consistory were Governor Peter 
 Minuit and Jan Huyghens, both refugees from Wesel. 
 As only certain ones of the older Walloons could 
 speak or understand a formal discourse in Dutch, the 
 Domine preached also in French, writing out his ser¬ 
 mons in that language, so as to be exact in pronun¬ 
 ciation and style. For centuries a majority of Dutch 
 domines spoke more than one language and read 
 several of them. 
 
 In 1628, this widower went back in the ship Een- 
 draght (Unity) to Patria, as the home land was 
 called, for the education of his daughters. The 
 Dutch Republic then led the world in the education 
 
 189 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 of women, for the elementary schools sustained by 
 taxation were open to girls, as well as boys, as were 
 also the schools in New Netherland — which colony 
 was the pioneer in the United States as champion of 
 the education of women. The records in Albany 
 show that probably seventy-five per cent of the 
 Netherlands women could write their own names, 
 which was far from being the case in the other col¬ 
 onies. The biography of Michaelius, so far as it is 
 known, that is, to the year 1638, is given by Dr. Eck- 
 hof, in the great “National Dutch Dictionary of 
 Biography” now in course of publication. His 
 record ends with the year 1638, for the archives of 
 the town, in which he later lived, perished some 
 years ago in fire. 
 
 Serving the twenty-nine Reformed churches in 
 New Netherland, from 1628 to 1700, were thirty- 
 three ministers, most of them Dutch, the large ma¬ 
 jority being graduates of universities and able to 
 preach in French. Of the total number, however, at 
 least a half dozen were, by birth, Walloons, or, later, 
 from France. Four of them officiated regularly in 
 that language, going from church to church, as their 
 services were needed; especially on Manhattan, 
 Staten and Long Islands, and at Esopus, New Paltz, 
 Wiltwick, Rondout, Schenectady, Kingston, and 
 New Rochelle. 
 
 Several of the domines were learned in one or 
 more of the Indian dialects, both Iroquois and Al¬ 
 gonquin, and did noble Christian work among the 
 
 190 
 
FOOD FOR THE SOUL 
 
 savages, in some cases gathering the Indian children 
 into classes. In the records of the church on the 
 frontier, at Schenectady, the writer counted up 
 the names of about one hundred and fifteen Indian 
 pupils or converts. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 RICH FARMS ON MANHATTAN 
 
 From the Dutch map of Manhattan by Vingboom, 
 1624-39, translated and annotated by Mr. Dingman 
 Versteeg and compiled and published by Mr. Ed¬ 
 ward Van Winkel, in 1916, we get a glimpse of the 
 prosperity of the Walloons on Manhattan 
 
 From the first a distinction was made between a 
 “bouwerie” or farm (i.e., improved land, with build¬ 
 ings) and a “plantation.” On the rough land, even 
 while still virgin forest, one could raise corn and to¬ 
 bacco, the latter being one of the first gifts made to 
 the Nova Belgicans by the Pilgrims of Plymouth. 
 
 For the grain, fruit, and vegetables brought 
 from Europe, more carefully tilled land, even that 
 ploughed and harrowed, was necessary, It was pos¬ 
 sible to go into the woods, plant corn or tobacco 
 in the shade, and then, by “girdling” the trees, to 
 make the leaves quickly wilt. This let in enough 
 sunshine to ripen the maize during the hot summer. 
 Such a “clearing” or “slashing” was a plantation. 
 The fields under cultivation made farms. In like 
 manner, a new settlement, in its beginning, when 
 men lived in bark houses, was a “concentration,” 
 but a more mature collection of people with houses 
 was a “colony.” 
 
 , Bouwerie No. 1 was occupied by Governor Mi- 
 
 192 
 
RICH FARMS ON MANHATTAN 
 
 nuit, when the colony consisted of but two hundred 
 souls. His survey showed that the island was about 
 twenty-two hundred acres in area. His imposing 
 house was on Deutel Kill (wedge, or bung creek) 
 near the East River. This one, with a score or more 
 of “kills,” or streams, has long ago been filled up. 
 Quite early, but more generally by the English after 
 1664, the distinction was made between “ Manhattan 
 Island*’ and “the Island of Manhattan,’* as two 
 districts, divided by a stream long since canalized 
 first, and then forgotten. 
 
 Bouwerie No. 3 was occupied by the Walloon, 
 Gerrit Theusz de Reux (de Reus). Engaged as a 
 farmer by Kilian Van Rensselaer, he had come over 
 with four laborers in the ship Salt Mountain, to es¬ 
 tablish a farm on Blommaert’s Kill, on de Laet’s Is¬ 
 land (near Albany) June 15, 1632. This island was 
 named after the great editor and historian John de 
 Laet, whose daughter and a son-in-law were at Be- 
 verwyck, or Rensselaerwick. As a justice of the peace, 
 de Reus was presented by Van Rensselaer, the pa- 
 troon, with a black hat having a silver band. During 
 his absence from Manhattan, the farm was managed 
 by another Walloon, Jehan Ides. De Reus returned 
 to Holland in 1634 and died in 1639. 
 
 The first schout for Van Rensselaer was Rutger 
 Hendrixsen van Soest, who was presented with a sil¬ 
 ver-plated rapier, with a baldric and a black hat 
 with a plume, his station being one official step 
 higher than that of de Reux. 
 
 193 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 The plantation of Jan Lampo, who was schout- 
 fischal — “a sort of attorney-general” — who came 
 from Cautel in Auvergne, France, was on Farm No. 8. 
 For three years Isaac de Rasieres lived with him. 
 
 io. Governor Wouter Van Twiller, who arrived in 
 April, 1633, had a tobacco farm. His house was 
 probably the first erected north of Canal Street. 
 
 12. This was the plantation of another Walloon, 
 Mr. Lesle de Neve Sinx. 
 
 Farm No. 19, of about two hundred acres, was 
 owned by Loen Ontangle (Jean de la Montayne) 
 born in Leyden and a student in the university there, 
 husband of Rachel de Forest, the daughter of “the 
 founder,” Jesse de Forest. Originally called Mus- 
 coota, this piece of land was chosen by Henry de 
 Forest, in April, 1637, in a grant from Wouter Van 
 Twiller. It lay “ between the hills and the kill,” that 
 is, from Morningside Heights to Harlem Creek, 
 which rose near Mount Morris Park and emptied 
 into the Harlem River. The northern boundary was 
 at 124th Street and the southern at 109th Street. 
 Henry de Forest died childless, July 26, 1637, and de 
 la Montayne completed the buildings. The spring 
 on this farm, still living and flowing, was long known 
 as Montayne’s Fountain, and the bouwerie was 
 called Vredendal, or Peacedale. In Riker’s “ History 
 of Harlem” and in Mrs. de Forest’s “A Walloon 
 Family in America,” we have pretty full descriptions 
 of this part of Manhattan. 
 
 37 and 38. Vingboom, the map-maker, accredits 
 
 .194 
 
RICH FARMS ON MANHATTAN 
 
 four plantations to “Gegoergesyn.” On June 16, 
 1637, Joris Jansen Rapalje, who had first, in 1628, 
 settled on the site of Albany, obtained a patent for 
 his farm at the Wallabout in Brooklyn. His baby 
 Sara, born June 9, 1625, was the first Christian 
 daughter born in New Netherland — according to 
 her declaration, on April 4, 1656. To-day the East 
 Brooklyn Savings Bank in Brooklyn occupies the 
 site. 
 
 The horse mill inside the fort, in the upper story 
 of which divine worship was held on Sundays, was 
 built in 1627, by the Walloon, Frangois Molemae- 
 cher. The old millstones are still preserved and have 
 been photographed by a descendant of Krol, the fa¬ 
 mous all-around worthy. This lover of true history, 
 Mr. William Brewer, has reared also a fitting memo¬ 
 rial in the Reformed Church on Second Avenue. 
 
 The larger grain or grist mill, outside the fort, fin¬ 
 ished in 1626, in the year of Minuit’s arrival, stood 
 on a knoll. To the settlers it must have been home¬ 
 like to see its great sails fluttering and its arms re¬ 
 volving. As was the custom from time immemorial, 
 the occasion of completion was one marked with 
 ceremonies and good cheer. No doubt the sight of 
 a windmill softened the smart of homesickness, for 
 now the landscape began to look more like that of 
 the old country; while the canal, soon to be dug and 
 embanked, added to the pleasing illusion. The prov¬ 
 ince of Holland and the place of the Walloons’ last 
 home was already famous for its artificial waterways, 
 
 195 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 but Hainault in Belgic Land did not receive its net¬ 
 work of canals until long after the Huguenot Wal¬ 
 loons had left it, nor until hard fuel had been discov¬ 
 ered beneath the ancient Coal Forest and utilized. 
 
 39. Claes Carstenz Norman had a farm on Long 
 Island, just north of the Wallabout. In March, 1647, 
 he received a patent for land on the west side of the 
 Hudson River. With Dirck Jansen Dey, he was the 
 first known settler of Bayonne in New Jersey, though 
 the name of the city came from a later French 
 Huguenot. 
 
 40. Dieryck the Norman, or Dirck Volkerson, had 
 this farm in 1639. His house and lot were on Man¬ 
 hattan, but he farmed on Long Island. 
 
 The frequency of the name or designation of a 
 man as “Norman,” “Dane,” “Swede,” “Norwe¬ 
 gian,” or “Scandinavian” in general recalls the po¬ 
 litical situation of Europe. Largely through the ac¬ 
 tivities of Gustavus Adolphus, in the Thirty Years* 
 War, many natives of the northern countries, adven¬ 
 turers, soldiers, etc., were in the Netherlands ready 
 for a “hazard of new fortunes.** Thousands of Wal¬ 
 loons had fled to Denmark and Sweden and thence 
 came to America, with the aid of the Dutch West 
 India Company. Some of the most enterprising of 
 the New Netherland and New England pioneers 
 were Normans of Scandinavian descent. 
 
 Interesting documents show how liberally the 
 Manhattanese were provided for, in the way of cat¬ 
 tle, sheep, and horses — which were brought over 
 
 196 
 
RICH FARMS ON MANHATTAN 
 
 first in 1625. The list of 1630 shows on the Minuit 
 farm twenty-eight, in all, of mares, stallions, and 
 cows, besides fourteen sheep. On that of Gerrit de 
 Reux were twenty. 
 
 When the later ships of the West India Company 
 came over, laden largely with Walloons, as well as 
 with Flemings and Dutch folks, the reinforcement to 
 farm and house life was notable. In the models and 
 structures of the average house of fairly well-to-do 
 people, those of the old country were followed. It is 
 true that in many cases, one prolonged roof covered 
 both the human habitation and that of the shelter 
 for the cows. The animals yielding daily tribute of 
 nourishment for men were treated in a measure as 
 fellow beings, worthy of constant care, while the vir¬ 
 tue which is next to godliness was supreme. 
 
 One notable feature, more common in feudal days, 
 but made effective on the American frontier, was the 
 “overhang” of the first story. By this, in case of In¬ 
 dian attack, the dwelling was made into a fort for the 
 protection of the garrison. Those within could fire 
 on their enemies below, or throw water upon the 
 blazing arrow, or hay-laden cart, which, when cap¬ 
 tured from the barn by the savages, was set on fire 
 and pushed up to the walls or door. Even in the 
 writer’s lifetime, many of these homely structures, 
 thus equipped for efficient defense, were still stand¬ 
 ing in the Mohawk Valley. 
 
 Neither to glorify fact, nor to transfigure tradi¬ 
 tion, but to state reality, from study, sight, and ex- 
 
 197 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 perience — and who knows human nature better 
 than the pastor? — the best gift brought to the mak¬ 
 ing of the American nation was the character of 
 these people, as mellowed by persecution and exile. 
 The orator in the forum or preacher in the pulpit 
 may be well acquainted with human nature from 
 books, but the shepherd of a flock — not sitting at a 
 confessional, but familiar with the welcome and at¬ 
 mosphere of homes — knows beating hearts and in¬ 
 ner lives. In our earlier American life, Walloon and 
 Huguenot may have been but as lumps in the cup; 
 yet though the form is lost, the sweetness abides. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 THE ISLAND OF THE STATES 
 
 Well named and of happy omen were the two is¬ 
 lands named “Staten” or the States — the one in 
 North America and the other at the tip end of the 
 continent on Tierra del Fuego. Both of them were 
 first discerned and given place on the world’s maps 
 by daring explorers sent out by the free Republic, 
 that had triumphed over the despotism of Spain — 
 the one in 1609 by the discoverer of New York’s no¬ 
 blest river; the other in 1615 by skipper William 
 Cornelis Schouten, a native of Hoorn, in North Hol¬ 
 land, and co-worker with the Walloon Lemaire. 
 
 Both these ships had been sent out by Europe’s 
 foremost men of science. Both represented the 
 forces of a new age — the age of public schools, free 
 printing-presses, a higher position for women, and 
 the right of man to govern himself in soul as well as 
 body. These ships were the embodiments afloat of 
 the law and order of freedom, as against despotism. 
 They were harbingers of a better era in the world’s 
 history. They sailed into a new age of human prog¬ 
 ress. 
 
 Both islands were named in honor of the federal 
 union of seven states — prototype of the larger 
 American Commonwealth beyond the Atlantic, that 
 was to extend from ocean to ocean. 
 
 199 / 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Hudson’s ship, besides bearing in its name the 
 token of victory and success, the silver Half Moon, 
 foreshadowed, in the very composition of its crew, 
 the union of two great peoples in the making of the 
 future United States of America. The captain, mate, 
 and one half of the sailors were English, the other 
 half being Dutch. In the evolution of the American 
 Commonwealth, which, until 1791, consisted of but 
 thirteen States, the Britons and the Netherlanders 
 led and wrought together, while the Northern, the 
 Central, and the Southern colonies were becoming 
 one organism. 
 
 Staten, the sentinel at the gateway of a continent, 
 has been called Huguenot Island, because so many 
 of these people, with consciences that were not in 
 the market, made their homes on its soil. Not a few 
 local names, to this day, are the outstanding proofs 
 and telltale witnesses of occupation, first by the Bel- 
 gic and later the French Huguenots. 
 
 Even from the initial ship, the New Netherland, 
 of 1624, some Walloons began their fortunes here, 
 but they were few and not long was their abiding on 
 the island. The Indians seemed implacable, and on 
 account of the red men’s menace, the earliest white 
 pioneers were summoned to the “concentration,” as 
 the term was, on Manhattan; though later, some 
 came back to suffer yet again in tempting fortune. 
 
 Were we to tell in detail this island’s history, we 
 should truthfully picture to ourselves not one ship, 
 of name and record, like the New Netherland, bear- 
 
 200 
 
THE ISLAND OF THE STATES 
 
 mg the Walloons to America, but rather the cata¬ 
 logue of a fleet. These vessels, from 1624 even to the 
 great occultation of their story by the more numer¬ 
 ous Huguenots from France, came laden with eager 
 refugees. These made homes, we know not how 
 many, upon the flats and hills of the Island of the 
 States. These Belgic Walloons of 1624 were pioneers 
 and pilots of the French Huguenots who came nu¬ 
 merously after 1685. They, like the Pilgrim Fathers, 
 were forerunners of the larger (Puritan) immigra¬ 
 tion. 
 
 It is after the Revocation that the names of 
 Chaille, Duche Pintard, Chadaine, Bodine, Depew, 
 Mersereau, Boudin, La Conte, Disosway, and 
 scores of other families of the same speech and faith 
 are found. Many of their descendants, bearing 
 those honorable and honored patronymics, are still 
 among us, doing the world’s work. Not a few stand 
 high on the rolls of fame. Among the inscriptions in 
 the cemeteries, one can read of many more that in 
 ability or achievement rose above the average com¬ 
 moner. On the church rolls, however, is the larger 
 number preserved and recognizable. 
 
 There are also deserted and forgotten graveyards, 
 in which the unnamed sleep. Too frequently, the 
 lone private and family God’s Acres have been 
 ploughed over, and the dust of those once above 
 ground rests under edifices, highways, or harvests. 
 This is also true of Schenectady, where in the open 
 space at the junction of streets with names of what 
 
 201 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 in the Middle Colonies were never politically joined 
 — “Church” and “State” — lie the unnamed. 
 Rightly did the latter thoroughfare, leading to Al¬ 
 bany, long bear the name of the Street of the Mar¬ 
 tyrs, because the Dutch and Walloons, slaughtered 
 in the massacre of February 9, 1690, were the vic¬ 
 tims of sectarian hate at the hands of Frenchmen 
 and savages who served the despot Louis XIV. The 
 favor-seeking letter from the leader of the raid, de¬ 
 scriptive of the massacre, was addressed to the mis¬ 
 tress of Louis XIV, Madame de Maintenon. 
 
 Long did Schenectady in the North bear the name 
 of the “Dorp,” or village; and so also was the first 
 settlement on Staten Island named — both being 
 suburban to a city. Thrice was the insular enterprise 
 destroyed by the Raritan Indians; yet on Staten Is¬ 
 land is still the New Dorp, and here also is Hugue¬ 
 not Park. It was towards the end of the seven¬ 
 teenth century that Huguenots numerously settled 
 at Marshland, now Green Ridge. 
 
 Staten Island is rich in contacts with history, for 
 we read of Coleman’s Point, where one of Hudson’s 
 men in the Half Moon was slain by an Indian arrow. 
 Among the edifices, at this writing, still standing, 
 besides the Du Bois House, is the Groot House, of 
 Dutch architecture — the original Walloon family 
 being named Le Grand. With the Jacques house 
 were willows from St. Helena and boxwood from 
 Mount Vernon, while the fence is from the old home 
 in Whitehall Street, on Manhattan. The Mersereau 
 
 202 
 
THE ISLAND OF THE STATES 
 
 House and the Crocheron House has each its inter¬ 
 esting tradition — the latter relating to the founder 
 of the family. To escape execution in France, he 
 hid in a hogshead on board a ship, in which were 
 his neighbors bound for America. What wonderful 
 tales, around their winter firesides, of flight and hid¬ 
 ing and disguise and hairbreadth escapes, these pion¬ 
 eers could tell! 
 
 Still intact, or the foundations visible, are the 
 former homes of the Perrines, Cortelyous, Cubber- 
 lys (Coverles), Guyons, Sequines, and Disosways. 
 Thoreau, who taught school here, was of Huguenot 
 ancestry. Though rich in the lore of the Indians, of 
 the Italian and Dutch explorers, of the New Nether- 
 landers of several strains, and of the Huguenots, 
 Staten Island’s later history does not now concern us. 
 
 Those who would, in their imaginations, reproduce 
 its social and religious aspects must, besides the mod¬ 
 ern local histories, read the reports of the two Laba- 
 dists of 1679. These tell of le chaudronnier (copper¬ 
 smith) who had been a soldier in Brazil, and of old 
 Pierre la Jardiniere, who was threescore years and 
 ten. By the year 1698, there were on the island 
 seven hundred and twenty-seven persons, not a few 
 of whom, thrice persecuted, had come as refugees 
 from the Island of St. Kitts (St. Christopher) in the 
 West Indies. The popish plots and brutal despotism 
 of Louis XIV had cast long shadows across the At¬ 
 lantic, and these kept people in America in constant 
 fear of the French conquest of America and of being 
 
 203 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 chained in prison, or on benches of the floating pur¬ 
 gatory of the galleys. No wonder then that they were 
 “Leislerians” almost to a man, and certainly to a 
 woman. After King William’s accession to the Brit¬ 
 ish throne, their fears vanished. Almost as a matter 
 of course, these people who counted liberty of con¬ 
 science as the best thing in life stood by their best 
 friend, Jacob Leisler. 
 
 What is characteristic of the entire Walloon immi¬ 
 gration to America is true also of the Walloons and 
 later Huguenots from France who settled on Staten 
 Island. Their collective history is recoverable al¬ 
 most entirely from their church records. Their ca¬ 
 reers centered in the church. In their case it is im¬ 
 possible to divorce their story from their religion and 
 conscience. Without an organization at first, Dom- 
 ines Michaelius and Drisius from the fort on Man¬ 
 hattan, and later Domine Selyns — beginner of the 
 literature of New York—visited them once a month. 
 
 For twenty years they had private worship, sacred 
 song, monthly preaching, and baptism of their chil¬ 
 dren; but in 1680 a church with French services was 
 organized and an edifice at Stony Brook was built. 
 The Reverend David Bon Repos served as pastor, 
 having been called by the Dutch Church on Man¬ 
 hattan to minister exclusively to those who used 
 the French tongue. 
 
 Their second spiritual shepherd was the famous 
 Pierre Daille — “full of fire, godliness, and learn¬ 
 ing,” as his colleague, Domine Selyns, declared. 
 
 204 
 
THE ISLAND OF THE STATES 
 
 Born in France in 1649, Daill6 became at thirty pro¬ 
 fessor of Christian theology at Saumur, in one of 
 the four Huguenot seminaries in France. Under the 
 bigotry of Louis XIV, these schools were broken up 
 and their faculties banished. Arriving in America 
 in 1683, Daille proved himself a veritable apostle 
 to his fellow countrymen, the scattered Huguenots. 
 Besides being pastor of the French church in New 
 York, we find him on Staten Island, at Harlem, New 
 Paltz, Bushwick, Long Island, Hackensack, New 
 Jersey, New Rochelle, several places on Long Island, 
 and wherever there was the greatest need, comfort¬ 
 ing, cheering, and helping souls. Called to Boston, 
 Daille served the French Reformed Church on 
 School Street, from 1696 to 1715, making a deep im¬ 
 press on the life of the city. 
 
 It was hard for the strictest Puritans to encourage, 
 by granting toleration, in allowing among them 
 such people of joyous temperament, who celebrated 
 Christmas and Easter. These church festivals were 
 unnoticed in Boston, until well into the nineteenth 
 century. Yet Daille won all hearts, and when dying 
 too soon, at sixty-six, he was mourned by thousands. 
 
 On Manhattan, in 1688, the Huguenots left the 
 old Dutch church in the fort and worshiped in the 
 new edifice built on Marketfield Street. In the latter 
 part of his ministry in New York, Daille had a col¬ 
 league, the Reverend Mr. Peiret, who served the 
 churches from 1688 to 1704, preaching usually in the 
 city, while Daille itinerated in the country. 
 
 205 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 One need not here enlarge upon the history of the 
 Huguenot churches in America, nor on the antiqua¬ 
 rian details — for which one may look in the local 
 histories. Their general spirit and procedure was 
 that of the Reformed Churches everywhere. In good 
 season, these people set a good example, for all time, 
 to immigrants. They quickly conformed in language 
 and ways of life to the country in which they dwelt. 
 Naturally, they coalesced first with the Dutch and 
 later with the American churches of the Episcopal or 
 the Presbyterian order, and through marriage helped 
 in forming the American Commonwealth. 
 
 Still another nationality was to be added to the 
 American composite when, on Christmas Day, 1656, 
 a company of hunted Christians from Piedmont, 
 Italy, the Waldenses, one hundred and sixty-seven in 
 number, sailed for New Netherland. They had been 
 driven out by the Duke of Savoy, who had joined 
 that company of rulers who, in the name of God, 
 while trying to kill conscience, proved themselves 
 unwittingly to be American colonizers. It was in 
 behalf of these people that Cromwell protested with 
 effect and Milton wrote his seraphic sonnet, begin¬ 
 ning: “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints.” 
 The West India Company, in 1656, gave the Wal¬ 
 denses passage in the ships named Prince Maurice, 
 Bear, and Flower. 
 
 Let it be repeated that commonplace records 
 abundantly show that the Dutch Republic excelled 
 all other states of Europe in the welcome given to 
 
 206 
 
THE ISLAND OF THE STATES 
 
 the Pilgrim fathers, mothers, and children of all 
 sorts, and to people of many nations, Hebrew and 
 Christian. Even a pagan received Christian treat¬ 
 ment. Not at once, but in time, the spirit of the 
 Father of his Country, William the Silent, prevailed. 
 Bradford, the typical Pilgrim Father, when still in 
 England, heard, and when in Holland found it to be 
 true, “that religion was free for all men” — a free¬ 
 dom which irritated the sectarian bigots and fanatics 
 of every State Church, whether called Protestant or 
 Catholic. None denounced this Republic for its tol¬ 
 erance more than the English State Churchmen. No 
 name was too vile to bestow upon the country and 
 people who held to the belief that “when persecu¬ 
 tion begins, Christianity ends.” 
 
 Despite all human precautions for safety, disaster 
 befell these Italian fugitives from the cruelty of man. 
 Saved by the Dutch in Europe, they met in America 
 distress from Nature. A terrible storm drove the 
 three ships apart. Two of these, the Bear and the 
 Flower, though delayed, got safely to Manhattan; 
 but the larger one, the Prince Maurice, which had 
 most of the Waldenses aboard, struck at midnight on 
 the ice-bound coast of Long Island, near Fire Island. 
 Through the dark and cold hours of a winter night, 
 they waited until daybreak. Then the crew and pas¬ 
 sengers climbed over the ice to the shore, hoping to 
 make a fire and get warm. But on landing they 
 found only sand, with no fuel, even of driftwood, of 
 grass, or of weeds. There they waited, shivering, 
 
 207 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 and at a loss to know what to do; for at first no hu¬ 
 man beings were visible. 
 
 Yet for three centuries, on this wreck-strewn shore, 
 have dwelt the Shinnecock Indians, sons of the soil. 
 These human brothers of ours, down to our day, 
 when but a handful of survivors remain, have ever 
 been the helpers, friends, and rescuers of the ship¬ 
 wrecked, even at the hazard of their own lives. 
 Theirs has been a permanent “Life Saving Institu¬ 
 tion/ 1 
 
 At that critical winter hour, the Shinnecocks ap¬ 
 peared and came to the help of the Waldenses. One 
 of them carried a letter to Governor Stuyvesant, im¬ 
 ploring his aid. At once the kindly old hero sent out 
 yachts and soon went himself to help the distressed 
 people. In a short time, all these Waldenses were on 
 Manhattan, where they found their other friends 
 from the two ships. Most of the cargo of the Prince 
 Maurice was later salvaged, but for many years the 
 sea-scoured and wave-whitened bones of the once 
 gallant ship were visible — one of a hundred or more 
 that have ended their careers on this ancient Island 
 of Shells. 
 
 After a short stay, the majority of the Walden¬ 
 ses made settlement on the Delaware. Some chose 
 Staten Island, to which, in 1662 and 1663, other 
 Waldensian families came. It is from these facts 
 that the names of Italian origin, found on Staten Is¬ 
 land so early in the history of New York, are ac¬ 
 counted for. From 1652 to about 1750, their chief 
 
 208 
 
THE ISLAND OF THE STATES 
 
 settlement, so tradition avers, was at Stony Brook; 
 after which, the Waldenses were lost in the mass of 
 the American people. 
 
 At last, on the dial-plate of time, the day and the 
 hour for the honoring of the founders of Staten Is¬ 
 land drew near. In 1922, led by the generosity, zeal, 
 skill, and taste of architect Ernest Flagg, the people 
 of Huguenot Park moved in the enterprise of erect¬ 
 ing a fitting monument to their Walloon and French 
 ancestors, to be called the Huguenot Church, with a 
 Memorial House to be for the good of the commun¬ 
 ity. May this undertaking be but the harbinger of 
 works of art, beauty, and usefulness that shall keep 
 alive the memories of those to whom we, as Ameri¬ 
 cans, owe so much. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 THE AMERICAN PALATINATE 
 
 The American who knows well the City of Brotherly 
 Love, which was laid out by William Penn with the 
 regularity of a chess board, having numbered streets 
 crossed by others with forest-tree names, feels won¬ 
 derfully at home in Mannheim, that is, “man’s 
 home” — on the Rhine. The question whether the 
 founder of Pennsylvania borrowed his idea from 
 ancient Babylon, or the Heavenly Jerusalem, that 
 “lieth foursquare” and had a river flowing through 
 it, or from Mannheim, is not here debated. 
 
 Penn traveled much in Reformed countries. 
 From Crefeld, in Germany, and other towns and 
 cities along the Rhine, he led large numbers of na¬ 
 tives and refugees, the Mennonites in Friesland and 
 notably the Welsh, his own countrymen, from other 
 lands into the territory named by King Charles II 
 “The Groves of Penn.” Two of our poets, both of 
 Huguenot blood, have sung the praises of Penn’s 
 “godly experiment.” 
 
 Whittier celebrated the Mennonite Pastorius in 
 “The Pennsylvania Pilgrim.” Of the streets of the 
 City of Brotherly Love named from the trees of the 
 forest, “as if to appease the Dryads, whose haunts 
 they had invaded,” Longfellow, in his “ Evangeline,” 
 tells us. One of the first duties of Penn, shortly after 
 
 210 
 
THE AMERICAN PALATINATE 
 
 his arrival, was to naturalize a company of Walloons 
 — very probably from Belgic Land, by way of Ger¬ 
 many and Holland. It was in 1606, three years be¬ 
 fore Henry Hudson sailed into American history, on 
 the Half Moon, that the Great Elector of the Palati¬ 
 nate, a true Defender of the “ faith once delivered 
 to the saints,” laid out Mannheim on a new plan. 
 Most European cities, built on mediaeval or feud¬ 
 alists plans, were crowded and cramped within 
 walls, with crooked streets, undrained, and liable to 
 the recurring pestilence called the plague. In hot 
 weather, the avenues were noisome. It was the 
 general custom to let the pigs loose at night, to feed 
 on the garbage thrown from the windows. The new 
 city of Mannheim, besides being well drained, was 
 laid out with thoroughfares at right angles. They 
 were thus open to the sunlight. 
 
 Even finer than the form was the spirit of Mann¬ 
 heim. The Elector, champion of freedom of con¬ 
 science, who invited twenty-five thousand Hugue¬ 
 nots to settle in Berlin, gave welcome in his domain 
 to all these fleeing from the clerical oppression of 
 the churchianity that had, in so large a measure, 
 driven out the spirit of Christianity. Frankfort had 
 been the focus of freedom, but now Mannheim ex¬ 
 celled. Thousands of Walloon and other oppressed 
 folk thronged to the new city of refuge and found 
 peace and prosperity. After 1685, when Louis XIV 
 revoked the Edict of Nantes, a second great immi¬ 
 gration from France met welcome. The city was 
 
 211 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 then enlarged, and the thrifty and skillful Hugue¬ 
 nots who had made fortunes were able to assist their 
 poorer brethren elsewhere. 
 
 As early as 1554, there went out from Mannheim, 
 the capital city, hundreds of Walloons to a lovely 
 valley three or four leagues distant, to make a settle¬ 
 ment which was fitly named Frankenthal — the Val¬ 
 ley of the Free. To the story of this place we now 
 turn, for over two thirds of the names on the rolls of 
 the Walloon churches at this place were reproduced 
 in Nova Belgica, or can be read, in more or less al¬ 
 tered form, in our city directories. Some of the fam¬ 
 ilies of Walloon descent, in the Empire State still 
 preserve the letters of dismission from the pastors 
 and churches of Frankenthal. 
 
 One of the most energetic of the Walloon pioneers 
 in America was Louis du Bois, born in 1627 at Lille, 
 an old Belgic-French city and destined to make a 
 name and settlement in the middle region of the 
 Hudson, between New York and Albany. He led a 
 colony and founded New Paltz on the Hudson. 
 
 From Lille, the Walloon city of weavers and tex¬ 
 tiles, then situated on Belgic soil, there began, about 
 1647, a migration eastward of these Bible readers 
 into the lower Palatinate, on the Rhine, where was 
 freedom of religion. Their old home land had been 
 seized by Louis XIV, but for those who suffered, a 
 change from Spanish to French bigotry was no im¬ 
 provement. Whether their masters were Spanish or 
 French mattered little, for both were tyrants of the 
 
 212 
 
THE AMERICAN PALATINATE 
 
 peculiarly Latin order. So in the “Paltz,” as the 
 Walloons called the German State, where also were 
 Waldenses and a few people from the British Isles, 
 they found peace and home. In America their haven 
 of refuge was fitly named New Paltz, or the New 
 Palatinate. Near by was the larger and older settle¬ 
 ment of Wiltwick — much later called Kingston and 
 for a time the capital of the State, at whose early 
 history we shall now glance. 
 
 In Mannheim, both before and after the Revoca¬ 
 tion of the Edict of Nantes, many Huguenots found 
 refuge, as has been said. It is even possible that 
 there was not a year, from 1624 to 1700, and cer¬ 
 tainly there was not a decade, during which the ships 
 floating the flag of the Dutch Republic did not bring 
 Walloon or French Huguenots from Germany to 
 America. 
 
 In Mannheim, Louis du Bois married a Walloon 
 maiden, and two sons, Abraham and Isaac, were 
 bom to them. Then preferring the American wilder¬ 
 ness and the red savages, with the risks of tomahawk 
 and scalping knife, to the Inquisition and galleys un¬ 
 der such kings as ruled in his day, he started for the 
 New World, with his fellow believers. After sailing 
 down the Rhine, into the Republic, in the spring-time 
 of 1660, he left for America in the ship Gilded Otter. 
 This early season was chosen so as to have crops and 
 food before winter. Other Walloon families followed 
 this same year. 
 
 On setting foot on Manhattan, instead of seeing 
 
 213 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 the solid stone structures of the Old World — the 
 splendid churches of ancient fame and glory and the 
 ornate town halls in their old home — they beheld 
 about two hundred poorly built houses. These shel¬ 
 tered over fourteen hundred souls. Inside the fort, 
 on Manhattan, were the Dutch church and the Di¬ 
 rector’s house and gardens. As in the northern 
 Netherlands, there was a windmill in one of the bas¬ 
 tions and the tricolor flag, orange, white, and blue, 
 waved over all. The hateful monopolies — espe¬ 
 cially that one of bolted flour, to be done only on 
 Manhattan, so enriching to the city folk, but cursed 
 by every farmer and sure to foment trouble — were 
 not as yet. 
 
 The first party of pioneers decided to settle at 
 Esopus. This place, or rather region, central be¬ 
 tween New York and Albany, had been named by 
 the Indians. By nature it was very lovely, with 
 grand vistas, having the Catskills in their majesty of 
 walls of azure, filling the western background, while 
 the glorious Hudson fronted all. The country was 
 well watered, for the affluents of the mountain-bom 
 rain stream drained and gave entrance into a large 
 area and fertile territory rich in game. 
 
 Fair indeed is Nature’s setting of both Esopus 
 and Wiltwick, or Rondout and Kingston, with sky, 
 water, and land making a picture of unfading beauty. 
 The alluring valley, the lordly river, the picturesque 
 scenery delighted the newcomers. The Walkill, or 
 Walloon’s Kill, drains a fertile area in two States and 
 
 214 
 
THE AMERICAN PALATINATE 
 
 takes its name from the initial settlers. Not far 
 away, a mile or so, was founded the new village, later 
 called Hurley. The names of the settlements around 
 the former capital of the Empire State are well 
 worthy of study. The Dutch name of the colony that 
 became Kingston was given in compliment to the In¬ 
 dian owners. It was called Wiltwick, that is, the 
 town of Goodwill, for the red men gave freely the site. 
 
 All Nature seemed to smile a welcome. Even the 
 savages had obeyed the mandate of the Great Spirit, 
 to subdue and replenish the earth, so that farm 
 lands, already prepared by human hands, awaited 
 the seed and toil of the newcomers. Nevertheless, 
 desolation was impending. To ascertain why the 
 menace impended, we must look at the first owners 
 of the soil. 
 
 History compels us to the conviction that the 
 white man, in the plenitude of his conceit as supe¬ 
 rior, and his pride in a higher civilization, actually 
 debauched the savage and retarded his steady 
 evolution. Slowly but surely the Indians had been 
 rising in the scale of progress. When Europeans 
 appeared, they for a time checked, instead of devel¬ 
 oping, his culture. For gain, the white trader sold 
 the red man guns and powder, in exchange for his 
 beaver skins and acres. Yet when the latent fire of 
 excited animal passion was let loose, both life and 
 land, and morals were burned up in the flames of 
 mutual hatred. Soon becoming expert gunmen, the 
 tribes began first to decimate and finally to exter- 
 
 215 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 minate each other, and to make of themselves 
 over the whole continent nuisances as pestiferous as 
 wolves or serpents. Because of this, they invited ex¬ 
 termination at the hands of more civilized human be¬ 
 ings; so that to-day, only the names of the moun¬ 
 tains and the rivers echo in the void, where no In¬ 
 dians are, but whose fathers, by thousands, were 
 once lords of the soil. In the white man’s histories, 
 we are told that the red man “would not accept our 
 civilization.” Yet we are constrained to ask why 
 should they — if built on strong drink and murder¬ 
 ous weapons? 
 
 Taking the next step in their progress downward, 
 the savages turned their guns against the white 
 man. Then the old fable of the eagle, wounded to 
 death by the shaft feathered with its own plumage, 
 was actualized in blood and fire. 
 
 In regions more westerly, issuing not only from 
 pits and hollows in the ground, or from crevices of 
 the rocks, but even uprising from flowing streams 
 and gurgling brooks, were both the mineral oil which 
 we call petroleum, and the inflammable vapor to 
 which we give the name of natural gas. Within the 
 memory of men now living, this gas has been util¬ 
 ized for heat and illumination. Corporations now 
 harness and sell for coin that of which the abo¬ 
 rigines knew not the value, any more than that of 
 the metallic ores under their feet. It was one of the 
 amusements of the Indian children to apply fire and 
 light the bubbles and tiny mists from the marshes. 
 
 216 
 
THE AMERICAN PALATINATE 
 
 By the same means, they made the crimson tongues 
 of flame rise out of, or play on the surface, even, of 
 the ice-cold, rippling current. This was their game 
 of “icy-hot,” even before the modern invention of 
 the “thermos bottle” thus advertised. Hence the 
 name, whether the flame came from swamp or rock 
 fissure, of “fire water” applied to the white man’s 
 distillations and devilish concoctions. 
 
 The solid black mixture of saltpeter, sulphur, and 
 charcoal and the liquid poison wrought together for 
 the mutual destruction of red and white man. In both 
 cases, the ancient truth was verified: “At last it 
 biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.” 
 Where there was one settler killed because of fire¬ 
 arms at the hands of Indians, there were probably a 
 dozen red men shot to death by murderers of their 
 own race, in internecine feuds and battles. The effi¬ 
 cient causes also of most of the so-called “massa¬ 
 cres” of white by red men were gunpowder and rum. 
 In other cases, Indian vengeance, in return for white 
 man’s brutalities, explained what was too readily 
 called a “mysterious Providence.” In the end, the 
 weapons, both solid and liquid, together with the 
 diseases of the palefaces, meant what was well-nigh 
 extermination of the savages. What the Inquisition 
 and the tyrant rulers in Europe signified to Bible 
 readers, compelling exile and movement westward, 
 the white man’s “fire,” in both his iron tubes and his 
 demijohns, meant to the Indians. They were stead¬ 
 ily driven towards the setting sun. 
 
 217 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 No more blameworthy than other European set¬ 
 tlers, from Florida to Maine, the colonists at New 
 Paltz were soon to suffer, through both cause and ef¬ 
 fect, from firearms and fire water, and more immedi¬ 
 ately because of the Indian policy of the honest but 
 autocratic and irascible Stuyvesant. His methods 
 were not those of Peter Minuit, Arendt Van Curler, 
 Roger Williams, or William Penn. To the deviltry 
 of firearms and fire water Stuyvesant added a crime 
 which no Indian was known to forgive — that of 
 slave-driving. Africa, but not America, might carry 
 such a cross. 
 
 The first of the greatest mistakes of this brave old 
 warrior was typical of his age. In his severity of in¬ 
 tolerance in religion, in narrow-mindedness, and in 
 government, he was an average magistrate of the 
 century. The second mistake, which involved a dis¬ 
 tressing war, and legacies of hate unquenched for 
 generations, lay in his ignorance of Indian psychol¬ 
 ogy, while underrating the courage of the freeman of 
 the forest. The negro, belonging to the most patient 
 of races, might be made a slave, but not the Indian. 
 
 After the first Esopus war, Stuyvesant, because a 
 man of his time and therefore well able to do some 
 things almost unthinkable to a Netherlands Chris¬ 
 tian of to-day, sent some of his Indian prisoners as 
 slaves to Curagoa, in the West Indies. This proceed¬ 
 ing kindled in the red man’s breast the fires of re¬ 
 venge. 
 
 To add insult to injury, the colonists, violating the 
 
 218 
 
THE AMERICAN PALATINATE 
 
 fundamental principle of the Dutch charter, had 
 built the new village on land claimed by the Indians; 
 while the older settlers, infatuated with love of gain, 
 sold guns and rum freely to the red men. Again the 
 world-old truth, that not money, but the lust for it, 
 or money-love, is a root of all kinds of evil, was 
 demonstrated. On the 7th of June, the savages in 
 a concerted attack wiped out the new village of 
 New Paltz in fire and blood. 
 
 At Wiltwick, the onslaught was less successful. 
 Warned in time, by mounted men spurring in from 
 the new village, the settlers, led by the brave young 
 Domine Blum, fought long and hard and the 
 drunken brutes and crafty savages were driven off. 
 Besides over a score of Christians killed, fifty or 
 more white persons were hurried into captivity. The 
 Indian had learned from his foe, who sold human 
 flesh in the market, how to make money by ransom. 
 It was an old European custom. There were ransom 
 brokers by the thousands. The complements of 
 slaves for the French, Spanish, and Italian war gal¬ 
 leys were recruited at slave auctions. 
 
 So the red men held their prisoners and treated 
 them decently, awaiting their purchase; meanwhile 
 building a palisade for defense. Three months 
 passed in captivity. For the Christians in duress, 
 daily prayer and the singing of Marot’s Psalms 
 proved their best solace. Then Louis du Bois and 
 Captain Kragier led the rescuing party. 
 
 Once again, in threefold demonstration, it was 
 
 '219 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 shown how foolish is injustice and how inferior, in 
 the fine art of living together, as a means of either 
 protection or redress, is force; how idiotic is the lust 
 for money, and how much more effective, for mutual 
 benefit and equal righteousness, and how practically 
 valuable are a knowledge of psychology and the 
 practice of the Golden Rule — the way of Penn, 
 rather than of Stuyvesant, or of Van Curler rather 
 than Kieft. 
 
 To the north, living in Schenectady among the 
 Mohawks, this man, whose name, “Corlaer,” is now 
 given to governors and kings as the synonym of 
 righteousness and power, was able by his covenant 
 of mutual justice to protect his settlement, which 
 was immune from attack until after his death. Then 
 French priestcraft and bigotry, having poisoned the 
 minds of the savage perverts, prompted the raid and 
 massacre of 1690, which Leisler had tried to fore- 
 fend. 
 
 One happy incident, the result of the pursuit of 
 the Esopus Indians, was the discovery by du Bois of 
 the lovely Walkill valley, so rich in farm land. Into 
 this earthly paradise, at the base of the Shawungunk 
 mountains, “du Bois the Walloon,” in 1663, led en¬ 
 terprising settlers to build their homes. In grateful 
 memory of the hospitality of the Great Elector of 
 the Pfalz they named their new home New Paltz. 
 
 In 1664, through treacherous conquest, New 
 Netherland was given a name that had little mean¬ 
 ing and no relation either to contemporaneous fact 
 
 220 
 
THE AMERICAN PALATINATE 
 
 or to its past history. The change in the political 
 status of the New Netherlanders, under the govern¬ 
 ance of the very untrustworthy Duke of York, who 
 was noted for his voluble but slippery promises, did 
 not put an end to the coming of either Belgic Wal¬ 
 loons or French Huguenots. This went steadily on, 
 even though the ecclesiastics of the Anglican religious 
 corporation, “established by law,” tried to make 
 American history revert to mediaeval conceptions, 
 as we shall see. Against this procedure of prelates, 
 to form a State Church, the Dutch and Walloon 
 majority of inhabitants made stout resistance, even 
 to the victorious end. Hence it was that New York 
 in 1777 led all the States in liberality, granting not 
 only toleration, but absolute liberty of religion to 
 all law-abiding citizens. Then the hope and vis¬ 
 ion of William the Silent, the far-seeing, became 
 fruition and reality; while the very first amendment 
 to the national constitution was against any intro¬ 
 duction into the United States of religion “by law 
 established.” 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
 
 Two of the worst kings that ever sat on the throne 
 of England were the Stuarts, Charles II and James 
 II. In addition to other lapses from integrity, both 
 aspired to capture New Netherland, in a time of 
 peace. After hoodwinking the Dutch ambassador, 
 Charles II sent an armed squadron, by which con¬ 
 quest was made and possession taken. The flag of a 
 monarchy, instead of a republic, waved over Man¬ 
 hattan in 1664. 
 
 Yet if one seeks to record facts with the honesty 
 of the contemporary writer, Bishop Burnet, the 
 reader may well ask, “Was this treacherous business 
 a success? Was the conquest nominal or real? Did 
 New York become a little England, or more sturdily 
 American?” 
 
 The real history of New York, from 1664 to 1775, 
 is one of social and religious, even more than politi¬ 
 cal opposition to what English statesmen and gov¬ 
 ernors tried, with more or less purity of motives, 
 to introduce into what had been a province of the 
 Dutch Republic. The pith of the story of New Neth¬ 
 erland is found in the popular struggles against the 
 tyranny of a grasping corporation, the covetousness 
 of patroons, and the folly of men ever looking to¬ 
 wards selfish ends. The desire of the people was for 
 
 222 
 
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
 
 the same freedom which had been enjoyed at home. 
 Wearied by the long conflict, they hoped for even 
 more liberty under English rule. In this they were 
 disappointed. It was not until after twenty years of 
 English rule that they arrived at the same point left 
 off under the Dutch — the election of a popular rep¬ 
 resentative assembly, which they had gained in 
 1663. 
 
 For from the very first, the English lords of 
 Church and State made the usual blunders of most 
 conquerors in failing to understand the psychology 
 of the nominally conquered. The initial purpose, 
 ever persevered in by the autocratic king, the lords 
 temporal and spiritual, and the commercially- 
 minded Commons in Parliament, seemed to be to 
 inflict on the colonists the features which they had 
 most hated, and of which they had left Europe to 
 be forever rid. These were autocracy, Church and 
 State in political combination, the surviving forms 
 of feudalism and privilege, the arrant nonsense of 
 “divine right,” and an aristocracy based on birth. 
 These were what, for their weal or woe, the colonists 
 detested and were determined to do away with. In a 
 word, they wanted and resolved to have only what in 
 Europe was good, and that which they deemed just 
 to themselves as men and fair to humanity. What 
 had bred persecution, cruelty, and bloodshed, they 
 were a unit in their purpose to leave and keep be¬ 
 hind. 
 
 The influence of the new environment had already 
 
 223 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 begun to affect them. Amid the freedom of the vir¬ 
 gin forests, with vistas of boundless expansion, they 
 were determined to get what they wanted, even if in 
 their methods of seeking it they were no gentler than 
 their oppressors, to whom the rack, the scourge, the 
 gallows, the axe, and the sword had been familiar 
 methods of persuasion. These people did not jest at 
 scars, for the reason that they had felt wounds. 
 
 Yet it would be absurd to apply “ the frontier the¬ 
 ory ” to explain fully why the people of New York — 
 the Americans, such as they were or are, either then 
 or now — differ so notably from Englishmen. Al¬ 
 ready even in 1664, the new type of man was form¬ 
 ing. So much French, Dutch, and other strains of 
 blood, in a people and in a country in which seven¬ 
 teen languages were spoken, made it impossible for 
 the insular institutions of England to work in har¬ 
 mony with those on Manhattan and the neighboring 
 islands, or in the valleys of our broad rivers. 
 
 Undoubtedly these royal agents in power, with 
 old-world notions, meant well. Some were less grasp¬ 
 ing and covetous than others, nor were they hide¬ 
 bound creatures of tradition and routine. Several of 
 the king’s appointees were men of conscience and 
 integrity; but in the main, the less the doings of the 
 English governors from 1664 to 1776 are exposed to 
 view, the more we, of English descent, at least, and 
 proud of our birthright and inheritance, think of the 
 dear Fatherland whence our Welsh, English, Scotch, 
 and Irish ancestors came. 
 
 224 
 
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
 
 In the last analysis, we may say that in growth to¬ 
 ward nationality the “Continental” prevailed over 
 purely traditional elements and the local spirit. The 
 idea of a union of all the colonies, first suggested by 
 Leisler, gained a strength that steadily increased, 
 through the logic of the events of July 4, 1776, of 
 June 14, 1777, and of September 17, 1787. In suc¬ 
 cession, the Declaration of Independence, the flag of 
 the Stars and Stripes, and the Constitution formed 
 by “the people of the United States” took their 
 place in the annals of mankind and “a more perfect 
 union” was formed. 
 
 The ideas generated on American soil came into 
 collision with those which honest and capable Brit¬ 
 ish statesmen felt were sound and even altruistic. 
 Americans, following the democratic principles of 
 the Netherlands Communes and the motto of 1477, 
 “No taxation without consent,” demanded repre¬ 
 sentation in Parliament and raised the cry, “No 
 taxation without representation.” Even the Amer¬ 
 ican opposition to bad British government, when 
 better organized in all the colonies, followed closely 
 in its methods those which in Parliament resulted 
 in a better Britain, and in which we on this side 
 of the water rejoice. The outcome in the American 
 Commonwealth redounds to the glory of English 
 history and is part of it. 
 
 To this day, also, British folk usually refer to the 
 American Commonwealth as “the States,” while 
 good Americans lay emphasis on the United States 
 
 225 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 and think of their country in the singular, making 
 use only as a sub-title of the plural. To them, the 
 body is more than its members. It does not contrib¬ 
 ute to a better understanding between Englishmen 
 and Americans to represent the latter as a mere off¬ 
 shoot of the English stock. It is this unwarranted as¬ 
 sumption of wholly English culture and preponder¬ 
 ating English blood, that has more than once embit¬ 
 tered international relations. Even such historians 
 as Edward A. Freeman, Goldwin Smith, and James 
 Bryce have proceeded on this misleading theory, and 
 many publicists and societies, and the English press, 
 still refuse to face the facts, which were as patent 
 in the seventeenth as in the twentieth century. In 
 their research into documents, governmental acts, 
 and things purely external, scholars have forgotten 
 to study the man, the real American, in whose veins 
 flow such generous streams of French, Dutch, Irish, 
 Scotch, Welsh, German, and Scandinavian blood. 
 No critical scholar can to-day accept the old notion, 
 almost crystallized in a sacred tradition, that before 
 the Revolution “ ninety-eight per cent of New Eng¬ 
 landers were of English descent.” 
 
 From the very first, ecclesiastics and economists 
 began to attempt the making of the American col¬ 
 onies, that were already cosmopolitan in texture and 
 spirit, a second England, instead of even a second 
 United Kingdom — wherein were the unconquer¬ 
 able Scots, who kept their church and law forms; the 
 valiant Welsh, who never gave up their inherited 
 
 226 
 
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
 
 culture; and the Irish, both of Ulster and the South, 
 among whom N orman feudalism never took root. In 
 America, these belated Norman ideas would not 
 work any more, but vastly less, than in Ireland, 
 Scotland, and Wales. 
 
 The absurdity of trying to establish the Anglican 
 machinery of religion, when relatively there were 
 only a few hundred English people, or conformists, 
 in the colony of New York, was attempted and ob¬ 
 stinately persevered in, only to meet with hatred, 
 defiance, and defeat. The overwhelming majority of 
 Free Churchmen were desperately determined not 
 to wear the Anglican fetters. The spirit of the Beg¬ 
 gars, of the men of the Half Moon, of the Walloons 
 and the Huguenots, of the Waldenses, of the Swiss 
 — who had humbled Charles the Bold — when 
 challenged and affronted, kept rising. Those who 
 counted all gain but loss, in order to keep conscience 
 free, were unitedly against the schemes of absentee 
 landlords and of over-sea prelates bound to a throne, 
 and these protesting elements were as a unit in their 
 resistance. 
 
 On the economic side, the people of the hinterland 
 were infuriated at the English monopolies, which 
 were centralized on lower Manhattan. When British 
 manufacturers, using the power of Parliament and 
 the Crown, first ruined the Irish manufacturers and 
 then attempted to smother the infant industries of 
 the colonists, the effect was to breed a spirit of 
 sullen determination and invincible resistance. This 
 
 227 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 false theory led to emigration from North Ireland to 
 America, on a large scale, giving our fathers a tre¬ 
 mendous reinforcement, especially on the frontiers. 
 
 When, further, the English governor, among peo¬ 
 ple who from the invention of printing and long be¬ 
 fore Milton’s voice was heeded in England had glo¬ 
 ried in a free press, attempted to muzzle the German 
 Zenger’s newspaper, the Scotchman, Andrew Ham¬ 
 ilton, championed freedom of speech and of the press. 
 By his learning, acuteness, and eloquence he made 
 appeal to law that was older than crowns or thrones. 
 
 Zenger was acquitted and the Dutch idea of the 
 freedom of the press was fixed and later secured in 
 the national constitution. The first amendment to 
 this fundamental law reads: “Congress shall make 
 no law respecting an establishment of religion, or 
 prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the 
 freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of 
 the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the 
 government for a redress of grievances.’* 
 
 Without a knowledge of the interior life and work¬ 
 ing of the Reformed Dutch Church, with which 
 most of the Walloons and French Huguenots and 
 many other immigrants coalesced, whose constitu¬ 
 tion seems a miniature of that of the United States 
 of 1787, it is next to impossible to understand the in¬ 
 ner history of the colony named successively Nova 
 Belgica, New Netherland, and New York. This is 
 true as simple matter of fact, for the people of the 
 great city and State ultimately divided themselves 
 
 228 
 
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
 
 socially less by race, politics, or economic interests, 
 than by church affiliations, into Dutch, French, and 
 English. He cannot be at home in the story, either 
 of the Empire State or of Pennsylvania, who is not 
 intimately acquainted with these phenomena. 
 
 The struggle against the English governors and 
 prelates from 1664 to 1705, and the partial success 
 of episcopacy, resulted in what, by the English party 
 in the colony, was wholly undesired and unexpected; 
 viz., the obtaining of charters for their churches by 
 the Dutch — which no others, outside of the Episco¬ 
 pal establishment, were able to secure — with later 
 the establishment of Rutgers College at New Bruns¬ 
 wick, New Jersey, and Union College at Schenec¬ 
 tady, New York. 
 
 Such a view of the facts helps to explain not only a 
 half-century of Leislerism, but also the craving for 
 that union of all the colonies, which originated in 
 the Middle Region, of which Jacob Leislerwas the 
 champion whose example Benjamin Franklin did 
 but follow. 
 
 After the Articles of Confederation, which were 
 much like those of the old Dutch Republic, there is¬ 
 sued the Constitution of 1787. This, with its system 
 of checks and balances in government, seems nigh to 
 perfection; yet every one of its federal precedents 
 is borrowed, with vast improvements, from those 
 of the United States of the Netherlands. Franklin, 
 Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson, even in their 
 criticisms and rejection, in 1787, of the outworn 
 
 229 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Dutch system, confess great obligations, theirs and 
 ours. Apart from numerous passages in their own 
 writings, one has but to read “The Federalist” to 
 see this. There was no blind copying, but selection. 
 
 When, to cite one of many similar examples, the 
 English Governor Fletcher, in March, 1693, in an 
 angry speech to the members of Assembly, which 
 consisted mostly of Dutch and Walloon members, 
 said, “There are none of you but what are big with 
 the privileges of Englishmen and Magna Charta,” 
 he meant, even as his acts showed, that it was upon 
 those principles of feudalism, which are embodied in 
 that noble document, rather than upon its provisions 
 for the freedom and protection of villeins, com¬ 
 moners, or the people, that he laid his personal em¬ 
 phasis. The Netherlanders, speakers of both French 
 and Dutch, as well as the Scotch and Germans, were 
 unable then, even as intelligent Americans are now, 
 to see the real facts in the same light as this English 
 interpreter of Magna Charta. Fletcher’s notions 
 were wholly of the conventional order, such as those 
 with which after-dinner orators even yet often re¬ 
 gale, while deluding, their hearers. 
 
 Fletcher at once proceeded to establish a State 
 Church. This enterprise was exceedingly distasteful, 
 if not insulting, to the overwhelming majority of the 
 non-English British folk, Walloons and others; while 
 by the Dutch, especially, who were equally proud, 
 with the Anglicans, of belonging to a national 
 church, the innovation was directly and stoutly re- 
 
 230 
 
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
 
 sisted. So this relic of Latin centralization and Nor¬ 
 man feudalism was fastened only upon certain par¬ 
 ishes, in four only, out of the ten counties of New 
 York. 
 
 Furthermore, what seemed positively ridiculous, 
 in the eyes of the majority of the people, was the at¬ 
 tempt of Governor Fletcher and his successors to 
 inflict upon them and create on American soil what 
 they were thankful, every day of their lives, they 
 had not: viz., a “ House of Lords, Spiritual and Tem¬ 
 poral” in the scheme of ‘‘King, Lords, and Com¬ 
 mons.” Even the idea of “ Commons ” was distaste¬ 
 ful, not only to the non-English, but to the Puritans. 
 These, in the army of the Commonwealth, had 
 changed the official vocabulary from “common sol¬ 
 diers” to “privates” — the term now universal. 
 
 When the people demanded a popular assembly, 
 to make the laws and vote the taxes, Governor 
 Fletcher, in his wrath at such a demand, uttered 
 words that roused still more anger. Those who were 
 at first sullen became defiant. Said he: 
 
 “You ought to remember that you have but a 
 third share in the legislative power of the govern¬ 
 ment-You ought to let the Council have a share. 
 
 They are in the nature of a House of Lords, or Upper 
 House.” 
 
 All this was exactly what the men of New York 
 were determined not to remember, but to forget. 
 
 Again, by aping the ways of other unwitting colo¬ 
 nizers of America, Fletcher and his still more foolish 
 
 231 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 successor, Combury, unknowingly became promo¬ 
 ters of the further colonization of New Jersey and 
 helped to build up Pennsylvania and Delaware. The 
 number of Dutch and Walloon churches doubled 
 during the first generation of English rule. When 
 Fletcher’s little finger of oppression became Corn- 
 bury’s right hand of autocracy, and the English 
 whips had become scorpions, the results were large 
 migrations into the adjoining Quaker colony, where 
 was mild republican government. 
 
 New Jersey, instead of scanty settlements of 
 the pioneers, sailors, stevedores, and longshoremen, 
 chiefly ex-servants of the West India Company, now 
 grew in population faster than New York. There 
 went out into the Raritan valley, in a total of many 
 thousands, in bands, caravans, and whole churches, 
 communities of Walloon and Dutch both, the de¬ 
 scendants of these lovers of freedom who wanted 
 better government. By these refined and cultivated 
 people, friends of religion and education, schools and 
 colleges were reared as bulwarks against both “the 
 puny skeptic’s hand” and “the bigot’s blinded 
 rule.” They made the wilderness blossom. New 
 Jersey became a garden state. 
 
 These people, thus “outed and expelled,” thrived 
 on oppression. Instead of there being in 1664 four or 
 five Dutch churches — the vital units of their organ¬ 
 ization — in which also were most of the Walloons, 
 with services and sermons in French, there were, 
 in the year 1700, twenty-nine Reformed churches. 
 
 232 
 
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
 
 These were under the care of the Classis of Amster¬ 
 dam, and a majority of them, with a noble history, 
 exist to-day. In time the Walloon and Huguenot 
 congregations on Long, Staten, and Manhattan Is¬ 
 lands, at New Paltz and in the Hudson, Mohawk, 
 and Raritan valleys, which had cordially fraternized 
 with the Dutch, ultimately coalesced with them. 
 Still later, a large number, more especially of Hu¬ 
 guenots, coming in directly from France or from the 
 West Indies, became Episcopal and adopted the 
 Prayer Book and Anglican ritual. ^Esop’s parable of 
 the storm and the sunshine, the traveler and his 
 cloak, was again illustrated. It was the intimate 
 knowledge of economic conditions in the West Indies 
 that enabled so many Huguenots, in both the colonies 
 and the States, to become wealthy merchants, such 
 as Faneuil, Gerard, Hilligas, and scores of others. 
 
 During the Revolution, no body of Christians ex¬ 
 celled those in the Reformed churches in furnishing 
 soldiers to the Continental armies; nor, in proportion 
 to their numbers, more patriotic chaplains and min¬ 
 isters— with a British price set on their heads. To 
 scan the lists of the official records of militia and reg¬ 
 ular troops bearing French, Dutch, German, Swiss, 
 Scotch, Welsh, and Irish names, is an inspiration. 
 The roster foreshadowed Distinctive America, and 
 the fusing of all minor elements into one nobler 
 mould for a State supreme, with a spirit of tolerance 
 and compromise that was to react first upon the col¬ 
 onies and then upon the nation at large. 
 
 233 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 The idea of “ the people’’ as a constituent part, or 
 officially recognized entity, was not unknown in 
 America outside of New England. In reality, the 
 first occurrence, in any American legal document, of 
 the phrase, “the people,” was in the Charter of Liber¬ 
 ties granted by the Duke of York to his new colony, 
 amid the rejoicings of the Manhattanese and the in¬ 
 terior folks. The man who was to become James II 
 of England affixed his signature September 17, 1683, 
 to the Charter of Liberties, and commented favor¬ 
 ably upon it. He even promised further privileges. 
 The text of this state paper reads: 
 
 “The supreme legislative authority under His 
 Majesty and His Royal Highness, James, Duke of 
 York, Albany, etc., Lord Proprietor of said province, 
 shall forever reside in the governor, council, and the 
 people met in general assembly.” 
 
 Yet what Stuart sovereign ever kept a promise, or 
 cared for truth? On February 6, 1665, the Duke be¬ 
 came a king. The Charter was first kept in London, 
 and then, by secret instructions to Governor Don- 
 gan, dated May 29, 1686, “repealed and disallowed.” 
 This Irish Catholic Christian gentleman, noble 
 statesman, and wise governor, who had made “the 
 people” so happy by telling them of the gracious 
 favor of his master, was left in the lurch, to explain 
 a royal perjuror’s acts as best he could. 
 
 Yet there are those who wonder at Leisler’s “ usur¬ 
 pation” and the tremendous popular feeling, Dutch 
 and Huguenot, that was behind him, persisting 
 
 234 . 
 
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
 
 through generations. The staunch loyalty, during 
 the Revolution, to the Continental Congress, of the 
 pastors of these churches, in which the people elected 
 their own officers, and in which the spirit of de¬ 
 mocracy was unquenchable, surprised the London 
 statesmen, who threw on others the odium of failure 
 in the “Scotch War.” 
 
 On the purely social side of the question, whether 
 the “ English conquest” was nominal or real, or New 
 York was ever, in any but a very nebulous sense of 
 the term, an English colony, one has but to read a 
 book full of inside, non-official, but none the less real 
 history, like “The Goede Vrouw of Mana-ha-ta,” by 
 Mrs. John Van Rensselaer, to realize what little im¬ 
 press English insular notions, methods, and manners 
 made upon the cosmopolitan people of New York. 
 “The History of the City of New York in the Seven¬ 
 teenth Century,” by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, 
 gives in accurate and judicial form a clear picture of 
 the noble addition made to the American composite 
 by the better sort of English people, who came, not 
 in overweening pride, “to tarry for a night,” or until 
 sufficient pounds, shillings, and pence had been 
 scooped into their coffers, but who, with gifts, 
 graces, character, and sterling virtues, enriched the 
 Empire commonwealth. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 WHO WAS JACOB LEISLER? 
 
 Was Jacob Leisler a German? I, for one, believe he 
 was a Walloon. This successful merchant, far-seeing 
 statesman, who first proposed a union of all the colo¬ 
 nies — eminent Christian, church officer, champion 
 of the people, unsleeping foe of monopoly, victim of 
 a drunken governor and his parasites but justified 
 by Parliament and vindicated by posterity and his¬ 
 tory — has been called by the prejudiced and igno¬ 
 rant, a “usurper” and a “low-lived German.” Can 
 we, amid the fog and storm of hate on the one side, 
 and excess of adulation on the other, distinguish the 
 true lineaments? Perhaps we may better ask, “Has 
 not the storm cleared?” 
 
 Frankfort, in Protestant Germany, was a notable 
 rendezvous for the refugees, seeking “freedom to 
 worship God,” whether from the Marian persecu¬ 
 tions in England, or from despotic France and the 
 Spanish Netherlands. In Germany these exiles took 
 German names from choice, by adoption, or by 
 translation or transliteration of their own, and be¬ 
 came as German as the natives. Among others was a 
 minister of the gospel, supposed, without any proof, 
 by later writers to be “a German.” In all probabil¬ 
 ity, according to the general and persistent belief 
 among those who knew them best, the Leislers, 
 
 236 
 
STATUE OF JACOB LEISLER 
 At New Rochelle, N. Y. 
 

 
 
 
WHO WAS JACOB LEISLER? 
 
 father and son, were of the Huguenot faith and from 
 the Belgic Netherlands, or France. The ruins of the 
 old French Reformed or Huguenot Church in Frank¬ 
 fort may still be seen between the Catholic and Prot¬ 
 estant church edifices of to-day. There is also a 
 “ Walloon Strasse," or street. 
 
 How Jacob's early life was spent we do not know. 
 Like so many young men of adventurous spirit, in the 
 days when the soldier of fortune was a social prod¬ 
 uct, his trade reckoned honorable and his figure a 
 prominent one in many countries, and when America 
 was the Land of Promise, Jacob, going to Holland, 
 enlisted in the service of the West India Company. 
 He took passage in the ship Otter, sailing April 24, 
 1660, for New Netherland. In the list of soldiers, his 
 name is written “Jacob Leysseler of Francfort," but 
 his clearly read autograph appears as “Jacob Leis- 
 ler.” When on Manhattan, he found himself in¬ 
 debted to the Company for passage and extras to the 
 extent of nearly one hundred florins. So, like tens of 
 thousands of other settlers in the Middle Colonies 
 and even in New England, beginning with the Pil¬ 
 grims, he was an “engage," or “redemptioner." 
 
 Yet he lived to become a man of wealth and sta¬ 
 tion. He was most probably “illiterate" only in 
 English, which was then spoken by a small number 
 of people in New York. Unfortunately for religion, 
 the ministers — who, alas, are usually too apt to fa¬ 
 vor the pew-renting, salary-paying, well-to-do part 
 of society — were, in the main, against Leisler. One 
 
 237 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 of the Dutch Domines he called a “cockeran.” 
 This showed that Leisler the layman was not versed 
 in the minutiae of those incessant controversies that 
 curse the church. In the Republic, Vcetius and Coc- 
 ceius, or Voet and Koch, were at that time in the 
 cock-pit. Those who have looked on their portraits 
 at Leyden University and read Dutch ecclesiastical 
 history, or one of the few good books in English on 
 “The Reformed Church in the Netherlands ” — for 
 example, Maurice G. Hansen’s sketch, which is the 
 best of any of the kind on this subject — will see 
 how the virus of controversy penetrated even to the 
 women, and was exhibited particularly at the parlor 
 windows on Sunday afternoons. One, Voet, repre¬ 
 sented the mediaeval schoolmen and ultra-orthodoxy. 
 Koch, the liberal, introduced the newer school of 
 biblical criticism, and held non-Hebrew and non- 
 Puritan ideas about the Sabbath, which were con¬ 
 sidered “loose” by opponents. In a word, here was 
 a phase of controversy as old as Cain and Abel, and 
 as new as the present year, and which will never 
 cease while knowledge so rapidly grows and human 
 nature is so slow to improve. 
 
 All these controversies affected thousands of the 
 Walloons in the Dutch Republic. It was largely 
 through their mediating spirit, influence, and writ¬ 
 ings, that reconciliation and peace were brought 
 about after “the second eighty years’ war.” 
 
 These excitements in Patria, the Fatherland, 
 stirred mightily the Walloons and Dutch in New 
 
 > 238 
 
WHO WAS JACOB LEISLER? 
 
 York. The controversy shook the Reformed, of both 
 races and languages, from the peach orchards below 
 Cape Henlopen to the broom-corn fields of the Mo¬ 
 hawk flats. The records of the synods, which were 
 held before the final settlement, at Schenectady, of 
 Reverend Petrus Tassemacher, who was a Cocceian, 
 while the other four Dutch Domines were Vcetians, 
 show this. In the case of the young Domine on the 
 Mohawk, his story was soon told. The minions of 
 Louis XIV and “the King’s religion” in Canada 
 stirred up the red savages to burn the frontier village 
 and slaughter the inhabitants. He was first killed 
 and his body was thrown into the blazing furnace of 
 his former home. 
 
 Leisler was of the old school of orthodoxy, a Voe- 
 tian, and he behaved like other church folks; but not 
 being versed in scholastic theology, is said to have 
 called one of his pulpit opponents a “cockeran” 
 minister, when perhaps he meant to say “Cocceian.” 
 Yet if he used the Dutch, instead of the latinized 
 form of Koch’s name, his was not much of a sole¬ 
 cism. Moreover, it is likely that the caricatures, 
 lampoons, and controversial woodcuts for which the 
 Dutch were so famous had reached America. The 
 Dutch funny fellows who in 1619 chased hens in 
 Leyden shouting “arme haenen” (poor hens) for 
 Arminians were quite capable of a “comic supple¬ 
 ment” fully equal to those in our American age of 
 Sunday newspapers. 
 
 Of course such a proof of “illiteracy” was conclu- 
 
 239 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 sive. It is more than probable that the Domines de¬ 
 nounced Leisler, more on account of his lack of 
 scholastic inerrancy than because of his politics. It 
 is even quite possible that the supposed solecism, 
 “cockeran,” came first from the lips of a tale-bearer, 
 and not out of Leisler’s mouth. 
 
 The probabilities and deductions, from the avail¬ 
 able data in records and testimonies, favor the idea 
 that Jacob Leisler was by birth and inheritance a 
 Walloon. It was the popular belief at the time. In 
 his Introduction to the “History of New Rochelle,’’ 
 by Jeanne A. Forbes, Mr. Caryl Coleman, embody¬ 
 ing the contemporaneous view in Leisler’s lifetime, 
 has written of him thus: “A well-to-do and rich 
 merchant, a man of French ancestry, but born in Ger¬ 
 many ... a pronounced anti-Jacobin, with strong 
 democratic tendencies.” 
 
 Neither a polished courtier, nor a Christian who 
 considered a knowledge of scholastic philosophy nec¬ 
 essary to faith or salvation, nor a fanatic, nor a fool, 
 nor a usurper, Leisler was the man needed for the 
 hour. It was no disgrace that a man of travel and ex¬ 
 perience, able to speak two languages, and who had 
 had experiences among the Turks, should be deemed 
 “illiterate” by persons who knew only one form of 
 speech. To him, the overworked symbol of the cross, 
 as to Endicott of Salem, was as hateful as the green 
 flag of Islam, or the red crescent standard of the Ot¬ 
 tomans. 
 
 The life in America of Jacob Leisler is well known. 
 
 240 
 
WHO WAS JACOB LEISLER? 
 
 The next year, 1661, after his arrival, when Stuyve- 
 sant discharged sixscore soldiers, most of whom re¬ 
 turned to Europe, Leisler remained in the service. 
 From the first, he was a man of decided religious 
 views and character, with an intense bitterness 
 against those political churches which in God’s name 
 had ravaged the Palatinate, driven him from home, 
 and put to death men who differed in opinion. En¬ 
 tering commercial life, he prospered greatly and mar¬ 
 ried into one of the families that considered them¬ 
 selves “the quality.” Active and zealous in the 
 Church, he was chosen an officer, becoming first a 
 deacon and then an elder in the Consistory. In 
 every way he was a popular or “people’s man.” In 
 insight, sympathies, understanding, and average 
 abilities, he represented three fourths of the people. 
 He despised the so-called “aristocracy,” whether in 
 or out of the Church, and of both the real and the 
 sham order. Unfortunately, of the latter sort there 
 were not a few in that minority, of British folk and 
 some others, that basked in the favor of the English 
 governor and his petty court. In giving expression 
 to his feelings, Leisler was sometimes rather noisy 
 and ostentatious. He imitated too closely his Eng¬ 
 lish predecessors. Nor was he a shining example of 
 that tact and courtesy which we associate with Hu¬ 
 guenots. In a word, under the menace of French 
 conquest he repaid his enemies and those he consid¬ 
 ered such in their own coin. 
 
 None, more than Leisler, knew the danger from 
 
 241 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 France, from Canada, and from the forces which, 
 outwardly, in sheep’s clothing wore religion as if 
 for the salvation of souls, while inwardly ravening 
 wolves. None of his predecessors, Dutch or English, 
 had put or kept in order the defenses of New York 
 City, or of the frontiers, with an energy equal to his. 
 To this the “Battery,” in its name, still bears 
 witness. None more vigorously than Leisler dared 
 to attack and break up the detestable monopolies 
 governed from the south end of Broadway. He 
 promised, in writing, the Schenectady farmers, that 
 he would seek redress for them. When his letters 
 were found, by the French marauders and their sav¬ 
 age allies, on the streets of that village, they were 
 soaked in the blood of those who cherished them as 
 tokens of economic salvation. 
 
 The possibility, at which his detractors sneered, 
 became, on February 9, 1690, a reality, written in 
 blood and fire. No one discerned so clearly the need 
 of colonial unity and the impending dangers from a 
 raid from Canada, of savages whose lust for blood 
 was heated by bigotry and religious hate instilled in 
 them by white men from France. On all his fears 
 and warning, the massacre at Schenectady — Al¬ 
 bany being saved only because the intense cold di¬ 
 verted attack — was a commentary in red. 
 
 Perhaps Leisler was fanatical in his religious be¬ 
 liefs and hatred of the kind of Frenchmen of 1690 
 and the France of Louis XIV. He was an intense 
 and fiery anti-Jacobin also. But why? Not because 
 
 242 
 
WHO WAS JACOB LEISLER? 
 
 he was a “German,” as Bancroft and most of the en¬ 
 cyclopaedias and their copyists say he was, for it is 
 most probable that he was not. Besides Dutch, Ger¬ 
 man, and a little English, his speech was French. 
 But then, he knew well what most discerning men 
 saw also, that for the French to conquer would be 
 to turn America into the kind of France that then 
 existed. Under that despotism of priestcraft, people 
 were hunted down like wild beasts, and then tor¬ 
 tured or killed, or chained to the galley’s oar, be¬ 
 cause they had a conscience and worshiped God in 
 a different way from a colossal egotist, who then 
 called himself “The State,” and from his fellow 
 murderers. Had Louis XIV succeeded in capturing 
 New York, the poor Huguenot women would have 
 been made slaves and the men sent to the galleys to 
 spend their lives in exile and drudgery. The litera¬ 
 ture of men who had toiled in the galleys, includ¬ 
 ing John Knox, and who wrote out their experi¬ 
 ences, help us to know how the Huguenots of 1690 
 felt. 
 
 Leisler was determined to defend the New York¬ 
 ers against both the English traitor-king, James II, 
 and the gilded tyrant, Louis XIV. He had the peo¬ 
 ple behind him and they looked to him as their pro¬ 
 tector. If we range the ministers of the Dutch Re¬ 
 formed Church against him, as history records and 
 compels us to do, it is because in their pride of educa¬ 
 tion and love of learning they opposed Leisler more 
 because he was “illiterate,” than on account of his 
 
 243 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 politics. Moreover, rough as Leisler was in handling 
 his enemies, he never, like them towards him, 
 thirsted for blood. 
 
 In fact, to sift the whole matter, the opposition to 
 Leisler was almost entirely personal. The “ quality ” 
 felt that one of their number ought to have Leisler’s 
 place, even as they envied his influence with the 
 overwhelming majority of the people. 
 
 What was there, on the other side, to oppose him, 
 and what were the vengeful forces that finally, 
 against all law and decency, had him put to death? 
 Of this legal murder the English Parliament after¬ 
 ward disapproved, reversed the attainder, and vin¬ 
 dicated Leisler, doing him just honor. We repeat 
 that whatever Leisler’s faults, he had none of the 
 bloodthirstiness of his enemies, who, by pressure 
 brought upon the English governor when in his cups, 
 secured his death. The precedents of 1676 and 1682, 
 in Virginia, of the royal governor's not waiting for 
 the king’s order, when thirty-seven men were put to 
 death by this English officer, was followed in Man¬ 
 hattan in 1690. 
 
 Neither martyr nor villain, nor a “usurper," 
 Leisler both in his life and in his death wrought a 
 great work for American freedom, law, and order. 
 For thirty years after his death, both parties, named 
 for or against him, rendered it harder and ever more 
 difficult for English governors to try to make of New 
 York a land of belated feudalism, or a new England 
 of the kind that was increasingly obsolescent in the 
 
 244 
 
WHO WAS JACOB LEISLER*? 
 
 old Mother Land. Leisler’s life and death worked 
 for the constant ascendency, in the social and politi¬ 
 cal world, of the once despised lower classes — who 
 needed only education and pure religion to rise 
 higher in the scale. 
 
 From one point of view, the history of the United 
 States shames England; from another, it is Eng¬ 
 land’s glory. Leisler wrought for the best British ele¬ 
 ments, which we Americans love and emulate, and 
 against the worst, which we hate and will not have. 
 Furthermore, what was of benefit to New York re¬ 
 acted on all the colonies, even as the spirit and tem¬ 
 per of the four Middle States, built on the old Nova 
 Belgica and New Netherland, affected for good the 
 nation, when in 1726 it became independent. There 
 was no colony that surpassed New York in the power 
 of public opinion, nor any that in the initial consti¬ 
 tution as a State excelled her in guaranteeing abso¬ 
 lute freedom of religion to all. 
 
 On the scaffold, forgiving his murderers, Jacob 
 Leisler proved himself a Christian beyond ‘‘name, or 
 form, or ritual word,” and 
 
 “ Like Him with pardon on his tongue 
 In midst of mortal pain, 
 
 He prayed for them that did the wrong.” 
 
 For two centuries the name of Leisler has been the 
 target of malignant abuse and misrepresentation. 
 Yet in our day, Leisler’s memory has been cleared by 
 some of the descendants of the very men who had 
 him hanged. The late Dr. A. G. Vermilye, of Wal- 
 
 245 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 loon and Huguenot ancestry, by his discussion of 
 the episode, made useless all previous controversy. 
 Leisler’s statue in bronze at New Rochelle adorns 
 the place of which he made a peaceful haven for the 
 victims of French fury. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 WALLOONS BECOME FRENCHMEN 
 
 It may puzzle the average person whose historical 
 reading is defective, to discriminate between “Wal¬ 
 loon” and “Huguenot,” as these terms are com¬ 
 monly used. The distinction is akin to that between 
 Pilgrim and Puritan, and in phases of religion they 
 are without a real difference. In both cases these 
 speakers of the French and of the English language, 
 respectively, and in all four instances, held to the 
 one faith. The needless confusion is like that of 
 the alleged “conflict” between “science” and “relig¬ 
 ion”— which is one purely of human limitations 
 and interpretations of the same concept which in¬ 
 cludes both. It is as near the truth as to talk 
 about the “warfare” between “chemistry” and 
 
 i i • j j 
 
 science. 
 
 Because some Belgic Walloons, already Hugue¬ 
 nots, became, under the dictates of autocracy and 
 diplomacy, subjects of the France of Louis XIV, 
 there has been generated more confusion — as if the 
 boundaries of countries in Europe were changeless. 
 After the struggle of arms, directed by Louis XIV, 
 this royal specimen of conceit incarnate, it was de¬ 
 creed by the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, that one of 
 the finest and richest areas in “the Spanish Nether¬ 
 lands,” or Belgic Land, was to be annexed to France 
 
 247 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 and to become later the D6partement du Nord — 
 the third richest and most populous of the French 
 administrative units. 
 
 Hence the puzzle of the average man, more or less 
 familiar with the colonial history of New York, to 
 find on the map of France those cities of Avesnes, 
 Arras, Valenciennes, Douai, Malplaquet, Lille, with 
 many towns and villages, which were so long associ¬ 
 ated with both “Belgian” history and the founding 
 of New Netherland. Yet the Huguenot Walloons, 
 whether Netherlanders or Frenchmen, Spanish or 
 Gallic subjects, were the same in blood and faith and 
 sterling character. 
 
 Hence also the references in documents to 
 “French” churches in the Dutch Republic, in the 
 British Isles, and in the German Palatinate; whose 
 formation was in the sixteenth, not the seventeenth 
 century, and whose members were almost wholly 
 Walloons, or Belgians! There are thousands of 
 Americans, versed in popular but uncritical notions 
 of genealogy, who imagine they are descended from 
 Gallic instead of Walloon ancestors. 
 
 In a word, hundreds of thousands of people 
 of Belgic stock and speaking French were made 
 Frenchmen. In this transfer, willy nilly, of the al¬ 
 legiance of wealthy and industrious people, the 
 French royal autocrat excelled the Spaniard, or the 
 Turk, in the deviltry of his oppression and persecu¬ 
 tion. The aim and purpose of the Grand Monarch, 
 urged on even more by his colossal vanity than by 
 
 248 
 
THE WALLOON CHURCH IN AMSTERDAM 
 
WALLOONS BECOME FRENCHMEN 
 
 rancor of religion, so-called, was to become the un¬ 
 questioned master of the souls as well as the bodies 
 of men. 
 
 In this aim, he was baffled by thousands of the 
 brave, who refused to sell their consciences, or their 
 birthright of faith. Those not chained to the oar, or 
 coerced into nominal conformity, sought to escape. 
 In disguise, in peat boats, or in carts under hay 
 or grain, in ships’ holds, or on springless wagons 
 through the darkness, on rafts, or by swimming riv¬ 
 ers, they took the risk. Aided by friendly brutes or 
 men, they fled by thousands. 
 
 Not a few, even when wounded by bullet shots or 
 sword blows, or tracked by bloodhounds, passed the 
 frontiers. The “underground railroad” was no new 
 thing when in the nineteenth century it was dug or 
 built for the black slave escaping from the cotton 
 fields or indigo swamps, in America. 
 
 On American soil in an earlier epoch, however, the 
 road to freedom was not towards the North Star, 
 but in the direction of the Southern Cross — from 
 New France or Canada into New York and New 
 England. 
 
 Comparatively few were the flights made directly 
 from France to America, the land of freedom. In 
 overwhelming majority the refugees made haven by 
 way of the Rhine, the Dutch Republic, Great Brit¬ 
 ain, or the Caribbean Isles. Then the Huguenots, 
 whether Belgian Walloon or Protestant French, 
 flowed together in one stream. Hence, after A.D. 
 
 249 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 1713, the distinctive story of the fugitive Walloons 
 as Belgic folk comes to an end. 
 
 In the same manner and for the same reason, the 
 Pilgrim story after 1690 loses distinction from that 
 of the Puritan — both to be virtually forgotten for 
 nearly two centuries, but to rise to the resurrection 
 of recognition and glory after 1750. By that time, 
 the old homes of Bradford, Brewster, and Robinson 
 at Scrooby and Austerfield had been discovered 
 with the aid of the Yorkshire historian, Reverend 
 John Hunter. In the researches of the Dutch pas¬ 
 tors Kist and Scheffer among the documents in 
 Dutch archives, the story of the English Separa¬ 
 tists stood forth plain and detailed. 
 
 ' The tens of thousands of her best people whom 
 France exiled in the name of God found homes in 
 Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, the Brit¬ 
 ish Isles, and in South Africa. More numerously 
 than elsewhere, they fled into the Dutch Republic, 
 thence across the Atlantic to Massachusetts and 
 Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
 Virginia, and South Carolina. They brought, for the 
 making of the American Commonwealth, the great¬ 
 est wealth that to any country is conceivable — the 
 riches of good and intelligent men and women of 
 character, industry, and culture. 
 
 In Germany to the number of thirty thousand or 
 more they enriched the realm with new trades and 
 industries, and soon made the region desolated by 
 the armies of Louis XIV blossom again. In Berlin, 
 
 250, 
 
WALLOONS BECOME FRENCHMEN 
 
 given at first the royal stables to live in, these Hu¬ 
 guenots, of 1672 and later, came to dwell in palaces 
 and became more Prussian than the Prussians them¬ 
 selves. Yet they kept up preaching and worship in 
 French, even to their quarter-millennial celebration 
 in July, 1922. 
 
 Even yet many Europeans wonder why it is that 
 the United States of America is so rich in money and 
 brains, with free religion and self-government; but 
 history makes it plain. 
 
 While these Huguenot refugees were from every 
 part of France, the majority came from Normandy 
 and what is now the Departement du Nord, much of 
 it being formerly Belgic Land, so that of the whole 
 number of Huguenot refugees in America, from 
 1600 to 1700, the Walloons probably formed at 
 least one third, and possibly one half. 
 
 One may ask, “ How did so many Huguenots, who 
 were very poor, secure passage across the Atlantic? ” 
 The answer is, in the same manner as the poverty- 
 stricken Pilgrim Fathers of Massachusetts who were 
 “redemptioners,” like the poor Walloons, to the sev¬ 
 eral colonies, or like the Germans in Pennsylvania; 
 that is, they paid later by their toil, when in America, 
 for land-transit in Europe and for their sea-outfit 
 and ocean passage, with years of work for those who 
 had sent them out. Their services were mortgaged. 
 They “redeemed” or bought themselves back by 
 paying or working out their debt to their masters — 
 whom we of to-day should call capitalists. Yet many 
 
 251 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 of the refugees from the West Indies were persons of 
 wealth, and possibly a majority of American for¬ 
 tunes, before 1800, made in commerce, were amassed 
 by the Huguenot merchants. 
 
 The French, in sending colonies to the “West In¬ 
 dies,’ ’ especially to the island of St. Christopher, or 
 St. Kitts, were among the first to practice the cus¬ 
 tom of “ redemptioning.” They called the passen¬ 
 gers under bond “engages,” because their labor for 
 a term of years was previously mortgaged, or en¬ 
 gaged, by the ship owners or trading and transporta¬ 
 tion companies. Most of the ancestors of the best 
 people in the United States were “redemptioners,” 
 even when not called by that name. 
 
 Long before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
 in 1685, the Huguenots had been shut out from Can¬ 
 ada by the royal edicts, so that even on this part of 
 American soil they were hunted down and deported 
 as if they were vermin. Between the years 1657 
 and 1663, especially, thousands of these people came 
 from Canada into the Dutch and English American 
 colonies. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 GREATER WALLOONIA 
 
 Neither a description of Belgic Land nor an outline 
 of its history would be complete, without mention of 
 a certain piece of territory beyond the western fron¬ 
 tier of Belgium. 
 
 What is now the Departement du Nord in France, 
 which, next to that of the Seine, is the richest and 
 most populous, was once a part of the Walloon’s 
 home land. 
 
 The larger part of this French territory, with its 
 rich cities, its prosperous manufactures, and its af¬ 
 fluent agriculture, is inhabited by people whose an¬ 
 cestors were Belgic. In the processes, first of covet¬ 
 ing and then of seizing land, the European sover¬ 
 eigns have ever been past masters. It was after 
 many tortuous mazes of diplomacy that this region, 
 following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle — itself a 
 Walloon city — became part of France. 
 
 Louis XIV was the autocrat of all France and her 
 possessions in various parts of the world. In 1690, 
 to please him and his mistress, Madame de Mainte- 
 non, the French of Canada, with their savage allies, 
 hoped to drive the English and Dutch out of New 
 York and possess it for France. Inflamed with fanat¬ 
 icism and lust for the scalps of women and children, 
 they set forth on snowshoes in midwinter, through 
 
 253 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 the deep drifts and over the long space between the 
 St. Lawrence and the Mohawk rivers, hoping to cap¬ 
 ture Albany. Owing to the intense cold, they were 
 able only to destroy the little village of Schenectady 
 and then retreat, pursued by the colonial militia and 
 the friendly Mohawks. Between hardships, hunger, 
 and attack, only a remnant of the raiders reached 
 Canada. This was all that came of the plan con¬ 
 cocted in Paris to conquer all New York. So the 
 energies of the French in America, led by d’Iberville, 
 were directed to the settlement of Louisiana. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the southern part of the province, 
 the Huguenot refugees from their home land and the 
 places of their dispersion in Germany were pouring 
 into New York. 
 
 On the Western Atlantic front, five great sea- 
 gates swung open wide their portals to admit and 
 welcome so rich an accession to the American com¬ 
 posite. These were at Boston, New York, Philadel¬ 
 phia, Jamestown, and Charleston. Yet of all these 
 premier seaports, the highest honors of entrance, 
 welcome and hospitality, belong to the thrice- 
 named city on Manhattan and to the thrice-named 
 river, on the bosom of which the incoming ships were 
 borne. Here their best friend, Jacob Leisler, who 
 had already personally assisted Huguenots with 
 money and sympathy, met them with land pur¬ 
 chased in their behalf and ready to be occupied by 
 homes. 
 
 As New Paltz in origin, character, and history was 
 
 254 
 
GREATER WALLOONIA 
 
 the most distinctively Walloon settlement within 
 the boundaries of the Empire State, so was New 
 Rochelle most notably that of the French Hu¬ 
 guenots. With stirring memories of the old city be¬ 
 yond the sea, so long the stronghold of brave defend¬ 
 ers against intolerance and bad statesmanship, New 
 Rochelle has been celebrated as one of the noblest 
 types of American municipalities, wherein many 
 creeds and nations dwell in brotherhood. 
 
 Was it any wonder that, when safe in America, the 
 Huguenots debated whether their new city of refuge 
 should receive the name of New Rupella or New 
 Rochelle? They would go beyond the memories of 
 war and sieges and famine, to the Rock of Peace in 
 earlier days. 
 
 It was in 1628 that the French city fell. Then the 
 remnant, that had survived disease, starvation, and 
 battle, scattered. Under the same “necessity, the 
 tyrant’s plea,” for national unity — as already made 
 use of in England to drive out to exile the Pilgrims 
 — France cast out her children, to enrich Germany 
 and the United States of America. 
 
 Nevertheless, amid all variations of war and 
 peace, fortune and decay, with annoyances as nu¬ 
 merous as incredible, during the whole of the seven¬ 
 teenth century, La Rochelle, with the Aunis region, 
 France’s smallest province, besides being until the 
 Revocation of 1685 the center of Huguenot life and 
 activity, is the ancestral home of tens of thousands 
 of Americans. Of the fifteen thousand Huguenots 
 
 255 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 who entered Pennsylvania, of the ten thousand in 
 Virginia, and of a number equaling those who set¬ 
 tled in the Carolinas and a possibly equal total in 
 New York and New England — quite probably fifty 
 thousand in all before 1750— the majority could 
 trace their descent to the towns and villages of west¬ 
 ern France. A large proportion of the remainder 
 were from that northeastern part of the French 
 realm which once was Walloon Land. 
 
 Amid the annoyances and the disabilities forced 
 on them, and the obstacles placed on their crossing 
 the French frontiers, those who were left behind and 
 who would not sell their consciences lived on and 
 even formed “The Church in the Desert.” As se¬ 
 cretly as the first Christians in the Roman cata¬ 
 combs, but as sincerely, they worshiped in “the dens 
 and caves of the earth.” 
 
 From time to time, from the toleration act of 
 Henry of Navarre, there swarmed off from out of 
 the old hive, colonies to other European lands, to 
 the French West Indies, and into the English colo¬ 
 nies of America. The stories of disguise and escape 
 across the frontiers, as told in reminiscence around 
 the firesides in the homes of what are now the 
 United States, if written down, would make a vol¬ 
 ume as thrilling as any of romance. 
 
 It was not, however, till after the Revocation in 
 1685 that the Huguenots of France left by tens of 
 thousands, as exiles, to find homes afar. The British 
 Isles, the Dutch Republic, and the German states 
 
 256 
 
GREATER WALLOONIA 
 
 were enriched, and so were the West Indies, espe¬ 
 cially the island of St. Christopher, and South 
 Africa; but not least among those countries that 
 profited most by the immigrations were the English 
 colonies along the Atlantic front. 
 
 Into Puritan Massachusetts, into cosmopolitan 
 New Netherland, under the liberal government of 
 William Penn, to the rich soil of Virginia and into 
 the Carolinas — enough almost by themselves to 
 create a commonwealth — they came and with wel¬ 
 come. 
 
 In New York there was both scattering and con¬ 
 centration. Into the Long Island and the Hudson 
 River regions, thousands of them went at once for 
 food and shelter, but on the land of Jacob Leisler 
 they made their mark most historic, and there, for 
 numbers, was the largest single permanent colony 
 of the Huguenots in America. 
 
 On the site of the Huguenot settlement in 1683 at 
 Oxford, near Worcester, Massachusetts, a memorial 
 in the form of a cross has been reared. Under the 
 persistent attacks of the savages, egged on by influ¬ 
 ences from Canada, this frontier enterprise was 
 abandoned. Traces of the bastioned fort on the hill 
 remain to suggest that, even as John Robinson, the 
 Pilgrim pastor, taught, the best and the worst may 
 be done in the name of religion. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 THE AMERICAN WALLOON DOMINES 
 
 The first book in the English language published by 
 a member of the Reformed Church in America was 
 by Reverend Lambertus de Ronde, of Walloon an¬ 
 cestry, whose parents had named him after the cele¬ 
 brated seventh-century saint, whose name is pre¬ 
 served in so many churches in Belgium. He had had 
 several years’ experience as a pastor in Surinam, 
 where he became warmly interested in the education 
 of the black slaves. In 1749, he wished to publish in 
 Negro English a “First Book of Christian Truths.” 
 In New Netherland, he served churches at New 
 York, Haarlem, and Schaghticoke, New York. In 
 the Revolution, because he was an intense American 
 patriot — as were most ministers of Huguenot or 
 Netherlands ancestry — he was hunted and driven 
 away from his own flock by the British. During this 
 time, he shepherded the churches at Red Hook and 
 Saugerties. 
 
 De Ronde translated the Constitution of the 
 United States into Dutch, and possibly also into 
 German, when, of the thirteen States, six had al¬ 
 ready adopted it. This was done by order of the 
 Federal Committee, and his work was published in 
 Albany in 1788. 
 
 , De Ronde’s career in the Reformed churches was 
 
 258 
 
THE AMERICAN WALLOON DOMINES 
 
 at a time when in the larger settlements the children 
 of Walloons, Dutch, and Germans were talking Eng¬ 
 lish, and the boys, instead of being sent to the Neth¬ 
 erlands to be educated, went to Yale or Princeton. 
 The time had come when, for safety and unity of the 
 future United States, there was to be but one spoken 
 language, and the Huguenots, Walloons, and Dutch 
 were among the first, in spite of some opposition 
 from the old folks, to set the good example of assimi¬ 
 lation. The project of establishing what became 
 Rutgers College was broached as early as 1763. Its 
 charter was obtained in 1766. 
 
 During this epoch, when the unifying influences of 
 the English speech and literature were winning their 
 way, the controversy between the ministers of the 
 Ccetus, or Progressives, and the Conferentia, or Con¬ 
 servatives, rent the churches, French, Dutch, and 
 German, in which worship and sermon were in these 
 languages. Few to-day know even the meaning of 
 these terms. The word Coetus is not in our diction¬ 
 ary, but comes from the Latin co -and iri — a coming 
 together, an assembly or company. Conferentia, or 
 conference, tells its own story in its form. 
 
 At bottom these terms in their application con¬ 
 noted, relatively, what “Tory” and “Whig,” “Con¬ 
 tinental” and “Loyalist,” and the more modem 
 “Home Rule” and “Unionist” signify. Their re¬ 
 sultant activities and partisanship sprang from the 
 same convictions and impulses. In church, in educa¬ 
 tion, and in politics, Americans began to think it was 
 
 259 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 high time that the churches, schools, and local gov¬ 
 ernment should be free from the direct control of au¬ 
 thority across the Atlantic. 
 
 In theological education, especially, young men, it 
 was thought, should be trained not in Europe, but 
 in America. Churchmen, educators, and statesmen 
 were all drifting towards unity of opinion in these 
 matters and, whether they knew it or not, towards 
 ultimate independence of lands beyond sea. Yet 
 throughout, there was the deep-seated feeling of 
 loyalty to the Mother Countries. 
 
 Yet how? 
 
 Surely not to the Europe that was passing away 
 — the old continent of united Church and State, of 
 exclusive Latin culture, of despots on thrones, of an¬ 
 tiquated institutions that were but the shreds and 
 patches of mediaeval feudalism. 
 
 The real deep-seated loyalty was to the best ideas 
 and traditions of ancient freedom and to the nobler 
 principles generated by the Reformation. These 
 Americans were led on by beacon hopes of a better 
 social order, a higher loyalty to their Master and 
 more direct approach to their Creator, to an educa¬ 
 tion that would fit the rising generation for more im¬ 
 mediately coping with New World problems. They 
 wished their sons to be trained for such forms of gov¬ 
 ernment as would mean less dependence on thrones, 
 worn-out traditions, and absentee rulers, and would 
 more strenuously develop self-rule and fitness to 
 meet the political problems unknown to the Old 
 
 260 
 
THE AMERICAN WALLOON DOMINES 
 
 World, but insistent on the new continent and im¬ 
 mediately confronting themselves. 
 
 Dr. Archibald Laidlie, born in Scotland, after serv¬ 
 ing at Flushing in Zeeland, preached in English in the 
 Reformed Church on Manhattan and revised the 
 English translation of her impressive and beautiful 
 liturgy, as well as the Belgic Confession of Faith, into 
 what was to be the master-speech of the United States 
 and of seven nations and may yet be of the world. 
 
 Another of the ministers of Walloon descent in the 
 Reformed Church, who lived to be ninety-two and 
 was in active service during seventy-two years, was 
 Henry Ostrander. Born at Plattekill, near New 
 Paltz, New York, March n, 1781, he spent most of 
 his life serving churches near those mountains which 
 at sunset throw their shadows on the bosom of the 
 Hudson. Living before the presidency of Washing¬ 
 ton and until 1872, he linked in his own life two dif¬ 
 ferent periods of national life and of language, for he 
 could preach in Dutch or English, and he wrote both 
 in fine, terse style. In him, boldness of spirit and 
 gentleness of manner were combined. 
 
 Another minister, probably of the same stock and 
 kindred, Stephen Ostrander, born at Poughkeepsie 
 in 1769, who lived to be seventy, was a pioneer 
 preacher among the Seneca Indians and in the 
 counties that were still mainly forest. 
 
 In the Reformed Church in America, in the course 
 of generations, were several notable families of min¬ 
 isters who could preach in both Dutch and French. 
 
 261 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 In some cases, those of Dutch, Walloon, or Huguenot 
 stock, within three generations produced a dozen 
 or more ministers or ministers’ wives. Not a few of 
 these carried in the very texture of their names, and 
 the meaning of them, the symbols of movement and 
 of elasticity of spirit, even in the midst of gloom and 
 suffering. The name Vermilye, which signifies from, 
 or out of the midst, is a typical instance. Of these, 
 Reverend Thomas E. Vermilye, born on Manhattan 
 in 1803, served from 1839 to 1893, * n the line of pas¬ 
 tors of the same old “Church in the Fort” of 1628. 
 With the advance of population, the two new edifices 
 for the enlarged congregations are to be seen on the 
 corners of Twenty-ninth Street, and of Forty-eighth 
 Street, on Fifth Avenue. 
 
 Reverend Depuytren Vermilye graduated from 
 Rutgers College in 1863. Ashbel G., son of Thomas, 
 born at Princeton in 1822, was pastor at Schenec- 
 day, New York, from 1871 to 1876. In a large sense, 
 he was a historian of his people, for his profound and 
 polished paper on “The Huguenot Element in the 
 Reformed Church” is a masterpiece of fine English 
 and of condensed history. In treating of Jacob Leis- 
 ler, in an essay in “The Memorial History of New 
 York,” which shows not only candor, generosity, 
 breadth of mind, a finished style, and judicial poise, 
 he antiquated (while emptying of slander) all pre¬ 
 vious discussions upon this theme. He exposed the 
 silliness and obscuring prejudice which had so long 
 befogged the subject. Few men in courtesy, wit, and 
 
 262 
 
THE AMERICAN WALLOON DOMINES 
 
 majestic personal appearance were better represen¬ 
 tatives of the American of Huguenot descent. 
 
 It was on the whole a cosmopolitan ministry that 
 served the Reformed Church. In its composition this 
 body of Christians reflected that over-sea Republic 
 which, as the prototype of the American, fed the 
 hungry, helped the needy, and welcomed the op¬ 
 pressed of every land, clime, and creed. We find 
 among the duly educated, university-bred, and reg¬ 
 ularly ordained pastors within its bounds, men of 
 Swiss, Swedish, Danish, German, French, Walloon, 
 Flemish, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and English 
 birth, besides the many born on American soil. Most 
 of these have shown themselves typical patriots, 
 free from that sectionalism which has thrown its 
 blight over American historiography, making much 
 of our national story a caricature of reality. This lat¬ 
 ter fact is clear, even in several notable series of vol¬ 
 umes from the presses of eminent publishers. 
 
 The last student among hundreds to go to Patria, 
 or the Netherlands, for a university education, or for 
 his theology, at Leyden or Utrecht, was John H. 
 Livingston, born at Poughkeepsie in 1746, who was 
 graduated from Yale College. On his return in 1769 
 he became the virtual founder of two institutions, 
 both at New Brunswick, New Jersey. One of these 
 makes claim to be the oldest Divinity School in 
 America. Rutgers College had already, in 1766, been 
 chartered, but did not begin instruction until 1770. 
 The strong motive underlying its founding was op- 
 
 263 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 position to the active propaganda of Anglican State 
 Churchism attempted on and from Manhattan. 
 The sentiment of those who nourished the beginning 
 of Rutgers College was for free choice in religion. 
 
 On every one of freedom’s battle-fields, from the 
 War of Independence until “the return of the New 
 Netherland” to Europe in 1916, with the American 
 Expeditionary Force, the blood of Alma Mater’s sons 
 has crimsoned the soil of America, Asia, and Europe, 
 in making with willingness “the supreme sacrifice.” 
 One of the best known of the six hundred forty sol¬ 
 diers from Rutgers and her alumni — four hundred 
 being commissioned officers in the world war — was 
 the promising young poet, Joyce Kilmer. In “the 
 victories of peace no less renowned than war,” the 
 children of Rutgers have promptly responded to the 
 nation’s call. No college, in proportion to the num¬ 
 ber of graduates, has sent out so many teachers and 
 pioneers of science and religion to Asia and the East 
 Indies as Rutgers College. 
 
 The motto of Utrecht University — a monument 
 of the triumph of the modern ideas of mental free¬ 
 dom over the reactionary despotism of Spain, and 
 also of the victory of Calvinism, with its public 
 schools, over Loyolaism — was Sol justitice illustra 
 nos; that is, Sun of [Divine] Justice, shine on us (or 
 literally, rise with healing). To this, from the Vul¬ 
 gate, Livingston added, in two words, a prayer on 
 behalf of America, et Occidentem , or, Sun of Justice, 
 illuminate also the West. 
 
 264 
 
THE AMERICAN WALLOON DOMINES 
 
 Rutgers has ever been forward in the new course 
 of empire. During the War of the Revolution, most 
 of the faculty and students were in the Continental 
 army. The first graduate, Simeon de Witt, was on 
 the staff of Washington. He laid out the works at 
 Yorktown, settled the boundaries, and surveyed 
 most of the central area of New York State, when it 
 was chiefly forest land. 
 
 More than any other college, Rutgers, “on the 
 banks of the old Raritan,” has in the past educated 
 the American sons, and in recent years the daugh¬ 
 ters, who are descendants of the Walloons and Hu¬ 
 guenots. It was into this beautiful river valley that 
 very many of their ancestors emigrated to make 
 their homes, when the English governor Cornbury, 
 of the colony of New York, abused his power. 
 
 For David de Forest, the Connecticut pioneer 
 (1669-1721) and the large number of his descend¬ 
 ants at Stratford and in the hill towns, and for the 
 record of the de Forests in war time, one must con¬ 
 sult the engaging volumes of Mrs. R. W. de Forest, 
 entitled “A Walloon Family in America.” In the 
 various local histories of the cities, towns, and vil¬ 
 lages founded in Nova Belgica, New Netherland, or 
 New York, one will find abundant proofs of the ster¬ 
 ling qualities in this strain, which made a decidedly 
 perceptible addition to the American composite. 
 Their full story deserves a far worthier chronicler 
 than the present one, who merely lifts the curtain. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 NAMES IN TRANSFORMATION 
 
 One of the most interesting facts about emigrants 
 is the frequency of their change of names. Done in 
 every age, land, and language — as any one familiar 
 with his Bible knows — it makes many puzzles for 
 the historian. 
 
 For these transformations, from Abram to Abra¬ 
 ham and from Jacob to Israel, down to Eleazer into 
 Lazarus, Paul from Saul, and Joshua into Jesus, 
 there is a reason, divine or human; but usually the 
 change is made to make life more easy, to save time 
 and trouble in spelling, pronunciation, personal writ¬ 
 ing, official record, and strain upon the vocal organs. 
 Such a process may also save taxes or shut off too 
 close official inquiry or personal scrutiny. Often the 
 transformation is a memorial of gratitude. Even 
 in modern days, apart from adoption and choosing 
 namesakes, the custom is surprisingly common. 
 
 It is laughable, when in the Dutch archives, to 
 scan the lists of betrothals and marriages of the Pil¬ 
 grims and other Free Churchmen, as written by 
 clerks who knew no English. Yet some of the Pil¬ 
 grim Fathers took Dutch names, or wrote their au¬ 
 tographs in forms easily read or pronounced by the 
 natives, to suit the Dutch ear and eye. 
 
 ,, In the United States, hundreds of names of 
 
 266 
 
A \t( 
 
 MAES. 
 
 <369 
 
 1370 
 
 DE MAHIEU. 
 
 LUYTENS 
 (a.nobl. 1627). 
 
 1373 
 
 MACON. 
 
 1377 
 
 DE MERLE. 
 
 1381 
 
 DE WINDELE et 
 PE MAHIEU. 
 
 MAC-DONNEL. 
 
 1373 
 
 1.U58 
 
 DE LUXEMBOURG 
 
 (baTAHD). 
 
 MAC-NENY. 
 
 LUYTENS 
 (vicoste 1730). 
 
 1374 
 
 1382 
 
 MAELCAMP. 
 
 1379 
 
 DE MAI1Y. 
 
 1372 
 
 VAN MAEL. 
 
 1378 
 
 MAES. 
 
 1371 
 
 1383 
 
 1376 
 
 SOME WALLOON COATS OF ARMS 
 
NAMES IN TRANSFORMATION 
 
 Walloon and French Huguenots, that have passed 
 through the filters of three countries and languages, 
 are almost unrecognizable, even by experts. It is 
 amusing and interesting to compare the various 
 forms of the same patronymic, as it is found in Swe¬ 
 den, South Africa, Spanish South America, Holland, 
 or in the seven countries of English-speaking people. 
 We are reminded of a kaleidoscope, or of Joseph’s 
 coat of many colors, or of the old man who heard the 
 voice of Isaac while feeling the hands of Esau. In 
 some cases, the result suggests a crazy quilt. To all 
 these obstacles to correct genealogy is added the 
 anarchy which was prevalent before spelling was 
 harnessed to rules, and when often the same per¬ 
 son would write his own name in several different 
 ways. 
 
 Let us for our recreation make an excursion into 
 comparative etymology and philology. Belgic Wal¬ 
 loons, and French Huguenots usually altered, trans¬ 
 lated, or transliterated their names, in order to be in 
 harmony with their environment and to save men¬ 
 tal, visual, and vocal exertion on the part of their 
 • hosts. 
 
 In the Dutch Republic, to give a few examples, le 
 Grand became de Groot; Chevalier, de Ruyter; Du¬ 
 mont, van den Berg; du Jardin, Bogaard or Bogart; 
 Dumoulins, van der Meulen, etc. 
 
 Other names, recognizable in both Dutch and 
 English, are Barry, Bonheur, Bonny, Donny, Emery, 
 Hardy, Peletier, Brill, Payne, Symonds, Haynes, 
 
 '267 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 Torry, Vincent, and a hundred others we meet with 
 in the telephone directories. 
 
 When it comes to the transformations to be noted 
 in English and American, to say nothing of Irish, 
 Scotch, and Welsh forms, which were originally 
 Belgic or French, we may count them by the thou¬ 
 sands. Even the ancient and classic names common 
 to all Christendom, such as Alexander and Peter, 
 may by human descent come to us in or from the 
 French form. In fact, personal as well as family ap¬ 
 pellatives suffered a “sea change” in crossing fron¬ 
 tiers, as well as the briny deep. Others in the list be¬ 
 low, like Agnew, Astor, Avery, Bailey, Barr, Batch- 
 elder, Bean, Benn, Briggs, Chambers, Clark, Cop- 
 pinger, Crowley, Daggott, Dennis, Driver, Fremont, 
 Goucher, Gray, Hewett, Jackman, Jaspar, Julian, 
 Longfellow, Lovell, Miles, Mott, Neale, Osier, Pil¬ 
 low, Perkins, Patton, Pearse, Pettee, Pickens, Plum¬ 
 mer, Powell, Quincy, Ramey, Revell, Rose, Row¬ 
 land, Seymour, Spicer, Terry, Vernon, Wallers, 
 Dwight (from de Witt), Bumpus (from Bon Repos), 
 etc., etc., though so long naturalized as to seem as if 
 grown on English soil, are the names of refugees 
 from the Low Countries, or France. Most of these 
 had taken their English form before they were 
 known in America. 
 
 Of the descendants of the fifteen thousand Wal¬ 
 loon or French-speaking Huguenot immigrants in 
 Pennsylvania alone, of Belgic or French stock, prob¬ 
 ably not more than a small fraction to-day bear the 
 
 268 
 
NAMES IN TRANSFORMATION 
 
 original form of the names borne by their ancestors 
 three centuries ago. The prefixes or suffixes have 
 been dropped apparently without rule or reason. 
 
 De Foe’s poem on the “True-Born Englishman” 
 finds its counterpart in the United States, where the 
 blood is as mixed as in the Jewish, the French, the 
 English, or any other supposedly “ pure ” but non-ex¬ 
 istent race, that has migrated like a plant or animal. 
 The study of names is much like that in qualitative 
 chemistry. On the quantitative side it has been 
 shown, however, that of the hundred or more mil¬ 
 lions of people in the United States, at least fifty-five 
 millions had American grandfathers born on the soil. 
 Nevertheless, probably with more than half, except 
 in the case of simple words like Smith, Brown, Jones, 
 etc., the orthography of their names differs from that 
 of their ancestors, whether known or unknown. The 
 most ordinary and many of the rare names are like 
 old garden plants that have “escaped from cultiva¬ 
 tion” and grown wild, developing new features in a 
 new environment. 
 
 In the light of this habit, it is easy to accept and 
 believe the persistent and general tradition, held 
 contemporaneously in New York, that Jacob Leisler 
 was the son of a Walloon or Huguenot pastor, who in 
 Frankfort had changed his name, giving it a German 
 form, as did thousands of the refugees, who became 
 even more German than the native born in the 
 Palatinate. 
 
 Without pretense of unraveling the many strands 
 
 269 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 of ancestry, that have entered into the well-woven 
 texture of the American of Walloon descent, making 
 him what he is, an alien has the right of giving 
 the results of observations in the southern Belgic 
 provinces. Even he can in most cases, among the 
 peasants at least, discern the differences between 
 Fleming and Walloon. At the market and in the 
 fields, in the factories and shops, one has a good 
 opportunity to study faces, figures, actions, and 
 speech. The modern Walloon, as I have seen him 
 at home, is “stocky,” thick-set in figure, and of a 
 swarthier complexion, with blue or brown eyes. He 
 is more quickly emotional, easily roused, interested, 
 or excited, but, sooner than the Fleming, regains his 
 mental equilibrium. Not only in the ditties heard 
 at labor, but in the talk of men and women, there is 
 a sort of sing-song cadence. As a rule, the Walloon 
 creature of either sex is gayer, merrier, and more 
 prone to extremes in his mirth and pleasures. 
 
 In matters of religion, or philosophy, or reform, 
 the Walloon inclines toward Socialism, but is more 
 abstract in his ideas than the Fleming. Probably a 
 majority of the Walloons are out-and-out Socialists 
 — whether it pays to be such or not. The Flemings 
 are, in the main, strict Churchmen and their Social¬ 
 ism is wholly practical, hardly rising higher than 
 successful economics. The Walloon starts things. 
 He begins heresy, reform, revolution, progress — 
 whatever may mean new ideas, requiring active 
 cerebration; but the Fleming, slower in beginning, 
 
 270 
 
NAMES IN TRANSFORMATION 
 
 has more tenacity and is more likely to bring to 
 completion whatever he takes hold of. 
 
 The Protestants of Belgium, numbering several 
 tens of thousands, are active and increasing; but 
 their field of enterprise seems to be almost wholly in 
 the Flemish provinces. Roughly speaking, there are 
 to-day no Protestant Walloons in southern Belgium. 
 
 In all these narratives of the Walloon heroes of 
 faith and freedom, we should not forget the woman 
 by the side of the man, who, with her finer strength, 
 suffered also for conscience’ sake. 
 
 Neither the Belgians nor the French take kindly 
 to emigration. Perhaps above all others they are 
 tenacious of life on the home soil. Yet with father, 
 husband, brother, and usually burdened with the 
 care of the children, the Walloon maiden, wife, 
 mother, left the old home to go forth, scarcely know¬ 
 ing whither. Not a few instances in the annals of 
 flight and exile are known, where widows or single 
 women, even with little ones, by wit or address or 
 pure valor passed the guards and boundaries on the 
 way to freedom. Nor did they fail, in the new and 
 often forbidding environment, as true helpmates, to 
 adapt themselves to the strange conditions of life in 
 foreign lands. 
 
 Even as the fossils found in the rocks and strata of 
 an older world show marvelous modifications, which 
 enabled the once existent organisms to live in har¬ 
 mony with their surroundings, awakening in the 
 scientific mind wonder and admiration,, so with the 
 
 271 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 silent records of births, marriages, deaths, and en¬ 
 tombment. As we scan the lists on the original 
 parchments, or on the page of reprints, or on the 
 stone covers of the tombs within churches, or on 
 the lichened records in the cemetery, the imagin¬ 
 ation kindles. 
 
 In our own land, the annals of the American col¬ 
 onies or frontiers stir the blood, as we picture the 
 past, or recall what we heard directly from the lips of 
 Revolutionary ancestors, and we scarce wonder at 
 the resurrection of art in tablet affixed, or sculpture 
 upreared — “ lest we forget.” We welcome the book 
 written or picture painted to save from oblivion the 
 heroic past, which inspires us for present duty. 
 
 Equally worthy of remembrance are the heroic 
 Walloons. Surely a virgin field awaits the pen, chisel, 
 and brush of the American who loves the ideal side 
 of life. It is for artist and sculptor to make known 
 in a better way than our feeble pen, a story which, 
 when our American people know it well, they will 
 “not willingly let die,” but bring to the resurrection 
 of art for “glory and for beauty.” 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 LIFE’S JOURNEY AMONG THE WALLOONS 
 
 A child or an alien, journeying in storied lands, may 
 be unmindful of the great events, on consecrated soil, 
 which to the native, or the mature student of history 
 and the man or woman of culture, make their fitting 
 appeal. So also, concerning the Walloons or their 
 country, has been the life experience of many Ameri¬ 
 cans who scarcely know even the meaning of the 
 word, Walloon. 
 
 The names herein recorded of friends, school¬ 
 mates, companions in play, and of eminent citizens 
 may, to those of English descent, have seemed odd, 
 often interesting in passing thought or even worth 
 inquiring about. Youth, that lives in the hour, 
 makes slight inquest, or none, into the past. 
 
 But what pretty faces among the girls, what jolly 
 fellows at school, in sport, under arms, at athletics, 
 and in classroom and picnics! What good society at 
 parties! What level-headed mature men of judgment 
 and kindly presence! What fine old ladies! What 
 pleasant visitors in the home, partners in the joy and 
 grief of common experiences, in the school, church, 
 city, and nation, do some of us recall! 
 
 Without fully comprehending heredity or history, 
 we could hardly fail to note the gracious manners 
 and the joyous temperaments in the bearers of these 
 
 273 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 names that sounded so odd. Did we not dimly fancy 
 in these a finer strain than the ordinary? 
 
 Such were the Benezets, the Supplees, the Par- 
 menters, the Morrells, du Bosques, Grimms, San- 
 tees, Boyers, Hamlins, Bodines, du Boises, Boutons, 
 Cressons, Clements, Bontecous, Cessnas, Boileaus, 
 de Lanceys, Duryeas, la Grands, Forneys, Gar- 
 rigues, Labaws, Herrings, Lefevres, Markoes, 
 Martines, Ritners, and scores more which memory 
 could recall. 
 
 Do not we, grandchildren of the men of 1787, love 
 to remember the gratitude of our fathers, who wrote 
 it in the Constitution that any one, even a foreigner 
 by birth, who was “a citizen of the United States at 
 the time of the adoption of this Constitution ” might 
 become President? 
 
 Besides the host of descendants, Germans, Swiss, 
 Danes, Netherlanders, Walloons, Flemings, Dutch 
 and French Huguenots, which no man has yet pre¬ 
 cisely numbered, did we not read and gradually at¬ 
 tain to deeper insight into the older street names, 
 which reflect much of the history of our cities by the 
 seaboard, from Boston to Charleston, South Caro¬ 
 lina? In the Empire State, even among the mighty 
 multitudes of the “vans” and the “tens,” how nu¬ 
 merous are those which are telltale of their origin, 
 such as de Forest, Dellamont, Truax, deGraeff, 
 Mabie, Baptiste, Trego, la Grand, Remy and many 
 another, with the prefix “de” or “la” — on or off! 
 Yet all of these named in this book are only a few of 
 
 274 
 
LIFE AMONG THE WALLOONS 
 
 the historical prefixes that have survived in the 
 American social climate and usage, for most of our 
 fellow citizens descended from French-speaking for¬ 
 bears have dropped these. 
 
 Even in the city dubbed “ the Hub ” by a Walloon 
 descendant — the great-great-great-grandson of the 
 Schenectady church deacon Wendell — what a reve¬ 
 lation! Here were Walloon and Huguenot names 
 galore! The first schoolmaster was Purmort. The 
 chief historic edifice was Faneuil Hall. The rider be¬ 
 tween the lantern in the church steeple and Lexing¬ 
 ton Common was Paul Revere! Here dwelt the fam¬ 
 ilies, Brimmer, Cabot, Beard, Durant, Dolbear, Le- 
 land, Perry, and scores of others more or less famous. 
 Many families of Huguenot blood and faith have be¬ 
 come extinct, but their names live. “The cry of the 
 eagle is heard long after his form has disappeared be¬ 
 hind the mountain,” says the Chinese proverb. 
 
 In church, club, market, shop, and store, and in 
 the seats of culture, were numerous descendants of 
 French-speaking ancestors in early New England; 
 while at Plymouth, near by, were fragrant memories 
 of Priscilla Mullens, the typical “Puritan” maiden, 
 who was born in France! 
 
 The balance of probabilities visible in 1922 is that 
 John Alden, lover and husband, was also of the same 
 stock and probably by way of North Ireland, or pos¬ 
 sibly eastern England, to which so many Walloons 
 and French fled in very early days. It is delight¬ 
 ful recreation to hunt up in Boston the names and 
 
 275 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 places associated with the Huguenots, and to learn 
 that in the veins of those sweet singers, Longfellow 
 and Whittier, in Thoreau also, and in thousands of 
 “ typical’ ’ New Englanders, flowed blood of the 
 same strain. 
 
 In the archipelago at the mouth of the Hudson 
 River, in the various cities on Long, Staten, Man¬ 
 hattan, and smaller islands, behold the host in the 
 sixth and later generations! All around us are the 
 Disosways, Lispenards, Jays, Motts, Jaudons, Ju¬ 
 lians, Duvals, and scores, yes, hundreds of names 
 that shed luster on the metropolis of America. In its 
 social penetralia , New York is a Walloon-Dutch- 
 Huguenot town. 
 
 But why make a prolongation — as of mighty Al¬ 
 pine echoes and resonances from the same little horn 
 of utterance? The identical social phenomena are 
 both audible and visible in the cities, towns, and vil¬ 
 lages of our forty-eight States. On the shop signs, 
 doorplates, and the “mossy marbles,” one reads the 
 names, “carved for many a year” of the Belgic Wal¬ 
 loons of Hainault, Namur, Liege, Mons, the Ar¬ 
 dennes and of the French cities that were once in 
 Walloon Land, such as Valenciennes, Lille, Bethune, 
 Arras, and Douay. 
 
 In the old home lands beyond sea some of us have 
 greeted or shaken hands with Walloon folk, or even 
 been hospitably entertained in homes of culture and 
 refinement, in which dwelt a people bearing the same 
 patronymics as those which, however pronounced 
 
 276 
 
LIFE AMONG THE WALLOONS 
 
 differently or expressed in print or writing, or cari¬ 
 catured by transforming phonetics, were really the 
 same as those borne by thousands in America. On 
 club and church lists, in directories and on the rolls 
 of fame, we find them. 
 
 In addition, there are all around us places known 
 by record or memorial, the sites of extinct settle¬ 
 ments of French people, such, for example, as Ox¬ 
 ford (Worcester), Massachusetts; Azilum (Rum- 
 mersfield), Pennsylvania, and on the map scores of 
 “French” towns, “French” creeks, “French” hills, 
 or “French” this or that, and yet many more to be 
 read about in gazetteers and in forgotten documents. 
 The “French Blood in the United States” — to 
 quote the title of Fosdick’s fascinating volume, or to 
 note Finley’s “The French in the Heart of America,” 
 or the books of the Baird brothers — is very far 
 from being the least element in the American com¬ 
 posite. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge finds that no 
 strain in the American composite has produced 
 more men and women of note in our country’s his¬ 
 tory. 
 
 For one to travel leisurely in the South is simply 
 to repeat the story of “old experience,” and, in this 
 case also, with great Milton, to “attain to some¬ 
 thing of prophetic strain.” In Virginia and the Car- 
 olinas, besides noting the abundance of Ravenels, 
 Colignys, Gaillards, Gregories, de Veaux, and hear¬ 
 ing hundreds more of like formation and lineage, 
 there may be seen, sprinkled on the pages of city 
 
 277 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 directories, Huguenot names as plentiful as violets 
 on the perfume farms of sunny France. 
 
 Not that a name, or any form of it, can always in 
 itself tell *— even if met with in American history be¬ 
 fore 1800, as truly as a finger print is a sign of indi¬ 
 viduality — the story of origin, ancestry, language, 
 or country. Nevertheless, the primitive old spelling 
 often affords a helpful and an enlightening clue. To 
 make one wary of pitfalls, one need but think of the 
 avalanche of immigrations from Canada and Eu¬ 
 rope, the floods from the bayous of Louisiana and the 
 deposits in the northwest from the old French occu¬ 
 pation. To the unforewarned researcher, a patro¬ 
 nymic with deceitful resemblance, especially in its 
 modern spelling, is much like the pits made by the 
 Walloons on Staten Island. They were covered over 
 with sticks, earth, leaves, or flowers, for wolves to 
 fall in and be trapped. 
 
 Set opposite to our immeasurable debt, created by 
 inheritances of language and law and by what Eu¬ 
 rope brought to us in blood and ideas, is the column 
 of continuous, beneficent American reaction on the 
 old home lands. Great Britain learned from her 
 American experience a noble colonial policy and 
 treatment of races. Franklin taught an over-luxu¬ 
 rious court the beauties of the simple life and hinted 
 that ordered liberty was a nation’s best strength. 
 Lafayette and the cohorts of French soldiers went 
 back to create a new France, by breaking the yoke 
 of ecclesiastical despotism. Besides striving to miti- 
 
 ^278 
 
LIFE AMONG THE WALLOONS 
 
 gate the horrors of the French Revolution — the 
 reaction against the dual despotism of Church and 
 State united — Lafayette strove to gain for his 
 countrymen what he had seen in America, free 
 churchmanship. He did not agitate or labor for 
 mere tolerance, that is, the right to live, but for free¬ 
 dom of conscience for all. By degrees, France won 
 soul liberty by breaking the shackles of the Latin po¬ 
 tentate and corporation, even to withdrawing her le¬ 
 gation from Rome and severing diplomatic relations 
 with the papal dynasty, and finally, in 1905, ceasing 
 to subsidize any cult. Nothing else so assisted to 
 make of the hero nation the “Eternal France” of 
 1914 as this action. Later relations with the Vatican 
 were resumed on a new basis. In resisting the Teu¬ 
 tonic onslaught of 1914, Jew and Gentile, Catholic 
 and Socialist, Reformed and Unreformed, marched 
 as one man. In a word, France reached and ac¬ 
 cepted the Huguenot position of the sixteenth cen¬ 
 tury. 
 
 Others have told the story of eminent men and 
 women of Walloon stock from the old Belgic Land 
 who won fame in America — though their merit is 
 usually ascribed to inheritances from France. It is 
 not for us, in this volume, to expatiate on what our 
 nation owes to those who bear the names of de For¬ 
 est, Minuit, Montaine, du Bois, Hillegas, Laurence, 
 Boudinot, Marion, Hamilton, Reynolds, Howe, Be- 
 thune, Vassar, Dana, etc., etc., or to enter into the 
 flowery fields of literature, art, eloquence, inven- 
 
 279 ' 
 
THE STORY OF THE WALLOONS 
 
 tion, enterprise, and exploration, in order to discover 
 our debt to the Walloon, or to do what Schiller has 
 told us, or to sound again the plaudits so deserved. 
 He may rather draw a parable from Bedloe’s Island 
 in New York Harbor, whereon stands the colossal 
 statue of “ Liberty Enlightening the World.” The 
 initial property of a Walloon, the history of the is¬ 
 land was for two centuries or more that of modest 
 usefulness only. It seemed set in the water for 
 naught but “homely joys and destiny obscure,” 
 until grateful France made ready her gift of Bar¬ 
 tholdi’s artistic triumph. 
 
 Nevertheless, Americans tarried in their response 
 and the fitting pedestal awaited its uprearing until 
 James W. Pinchot, of Walloon descent, summoned 
 his fellow citizens to their duty and privilege. Now, 
 set on high, besides being “a thing of beauty” and 
 ‘‘a joy forever,” the electric current, generated from 
 the long-hidden treasures within the earth, makes 
 this statue at night a beacon for ships “to give light 
 and to save life.” 
 
 “History is a resurrection.” 
 
 THE END 
 
THE FRAMEWORK OF TIME 
 

 
THE FRAMEWORK OF TIME 
 
 From primeval ages, the root form gal, or wal — as in Gallic 
 Gaul, Galatians, there being no w in Latin, and the letters g and 
 w being interchangeable in the North — existed in the Indo- 
 Germanic tongues. With the root oon, or one, the word “Wal¬ 
 loon” was formed and first used in the English language during 
 the sixteenth century; the literal idea of what was stranger, 
 pilgrim, foreign being the same as in “Wales,” “walnut,” “ Wal- 
 lachia,” and in many place-names. Hence wal, foreign, oon, 
 one = Walloon. 
 
 The Coal Forest, once covering a large area in Belgica, over 
 what is now the coal-mining region, was not penetrated by the 
 Romans or Franks, and served as a barrier separating the Belgse 
 in the south, of Celtic stock, from the Flemings of the north, of 
 Teutonic origin. Hence two races and two languages in Belgium. 
 
 In Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War, the Belgae are men¬ 
 tioned as being “the bravest of all these” in Belgica, or “Bel¬ 
 gium” — then a geographical term including a great area. 
 
 The Roman Occupation. B.c. 
 
 The invasion and empire of the Franks. 
 
 Belgium made part of Austrasia. 
 
 “The Century of the Saints” — Christian Mission¬ 
 aries. 
 
 The Carlovingian Empire. 
 
 Foundation and development of the provinces, of 
 Belgic Land, until the thirteenth century. The 
 Charcoal Forest. 
 
 Church and State united — Charlemagne. 
 
 The Verdun Compact. Three Realms. 
 
 Duchy of Lothair and Principality of Li&ge. 
 
 The Belgian Crusades. 
 
 The Communes. 
 
 The Belgian Countships. 
 
 Flourishing of the Cities. 
 
 The Burgundian Era (Unification). 
 
 283 
 
 53-A.D. 406, 
 A.D. 300 
 
 511 
 
 600-700 
 
 614-618 
 
 800 
 
 843 
 
 956-IO96 
 
 IO96-I270 
 
 900-1500 
 
 9OO-I279 
 
 1200-1500 
 
 1384-1476 
 
THE FRAMEWORK OF TIME 
 
 The Renaissance. 
 
 The Turks capture Constantinople. Dispersion of 
 the Greek scholars in Western Europe. 
 
 Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. 
 
 Charles V. 
 
 The Reformation Era. 
 
 Beginnings of the French Reformation. 
 
 Revolt against Spanish Rule. 
 
 The “Huguenots.” 
 
 Translation and singing of the Psalms by the French 
 and Walloon Huguenots. 
 
 Translation of the Bible into French. 
 
 John Calvin, father of public schools and promoter 
 of the first French Protestant colony in America, 
 Brazil. 
 
 Huguenot French attempts at Colonization in 
 Florida. 
 
 Walloon refugees in England and the Palatinate. 
 
 Hedge preaching. Peregrine La Grand. 
 
 Guido de Bray. 
 
 The Belgic Confession of Faith. 
 
 The Edict of Nantes. 
 
 Philip II of Spain. 
 
 Spanish Invasion, led by the Duke of Alva. 
 
 Flight and Dispersion of the Walloons. 
 
 Birth of Usselinx, father of the West India Com¬ 
 pany and of Walloon Colonization in America. 
 
 Beginning of the Great Dispersion. 
 
 Union of Arras — the Walloon Provinces return to 
 Spanish allegiance. 
 
 Principal migrations of the Walloons into the Ger¬ 
 man Palatinate and other Lands o Exile. 
 
 Declaration of freedom of conscience, by William 
 of Orange. 
 
 Jesse de Forest in Belgic Land. 
 
 Jesse de Forest in Leyden. 
 
 He enrolls colonists for Virginia. 
 
 The Walloon Provinces react toward Spain. “The 
 Spanish Netherlands.” 
 
 1300-1560 
 
 1453 
 
 1506-1530 
 
 I 5 I 5 -I 555 
 
 1517-1648 
 
 1523-1530 
 
 1555-1598 
 
 1550 
 
 1545 
 
 1523-1530 
 
 1536 
 
 1562-1564 
 
 1544-1700 
 
 1560 
 1540-1567 
 
 1561 
 1598 
 
 1527-1598 
 
 1567 
 
 1567-1580 
 
 1567 
 
 1567 
 
 1578 
 
 1567-1688 
 
 1577 
 
 1576-1615 
 
 1615-1623 
 
 1621 
 
 I 579 -I 7 I 3 
 
 284 
 
THE FRAMEWORK OF TIME 
 
 The English Separatists arrive in Amsterdam. 1593 
 
 The Dutch East India Company formed. 1602 
 
 Struggle between the Secession (State Right) and 
 
 Union parties in the Dutch Republic. 1609-1619 
 
 Sailing of the Half Moon. Discovery of New Nether- 
 
 land. 1609 
 
 The “Pilgrim Fathers” in Leyden (8 nationalities). 1610-1655 
 Triumph of the Union Cause and National Synod 
 
 of Dordrecht. 1619 
 
 Formation of the Dutch West India Company. 1621 
 
 Dutch fur-traders, fishermen, and explorers in New 
 Netherland. 1610-1624 
 
 Arrival of the ship New Netherland, with thirty 
 families, mostly Walloons. Founding of New 
 York and the Middle States. The first home¬ 
 makers and tillers of the soil. Four Walloon mar¬ 
 
 ried couples settle in the Delaware Valley. 1624 
 
 William Verhulst, Director. New settlers arrive, 
 
 with live-stock, tools, mechanics, etc. 1625 
 
 New Netherland, a province of the Dutch Republic, 
 organized with a civil government and seal and 
 named [Terra] Nova Belgica. 1626 
 
 First public worship in organized church and preach¬ 
 ing to the Walloons in America. 1628 
 
 The Austrian Netherlands (Absolutism). 1714-1794 
 
 Belgian territory ceded to France and becomes 
 Artois and later Departement du Nord. 1668 
 
 “A Century of Misery.” Belgium “the Cockpit of 
 Europe.” 1600-1700 
 
 Belgium united to Holland. 1814-1830 
 
 Independence of Belgium, the Modern Kingdom, 
 with freedom of conscience. 1830 
 
 Formation of Huguenot Societies in U.S.A. 1883 
 
 Publication of The de Forests of Avesnes. 1900 
 
 Publication of the Poujol’s History and Influence of 
 the Walloon Churches in the Netherlands. 1902 
 
 The Great World War. 1914-1918 
 
 “Return of the New Netherland.” American help to 
 
 Belgium and France. 1916-1918 
 
 285 
 
THE FRAMEWORK OF TIME 
 
 Issues of five editions of Corwin’s Manual , showing 
 Walloon and Dutch pastors. 
 
 Publication of A Walloon Family in America. 
 
 Federal Council of Churches propose a national 
 Tercentenary celebration, in 1924, of the founding 
 in 1624, of New York, by the Huguenot Wal¬ 
 loons. 
 
 1859-1922 
 
 1914 
 
 1922 
 
INDEX 
 

INDEX 
 
 Aborigines, 142. See Indians. 
 Adolphus. See Gustavus Adol¬ 
 phus. 
 
 Agnew, 268. 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, 253. 
 
 Albany, 147, 151, 152, 193, 258. 
 
 See Beverwyck. , 
 
 Alden, John, 275. 
 
 Algonquins, 157. 
 
 Alva, Duke of, 42, 101. 
 
 America, 31, 44, 46, 47, 233, 260. 
 American Expeditionary Force, 
 264. 
 
 American freedom, 53, 104, 260. 
 Americans, 224, 226, 248. 
 
 Amida, 92. 
 
 Amsterdam, 112, 166. 
 Anabaptists, 51-56, 80, 81/ 
 Ancestors, 159, 248, 253, 265, 270. 
 Anglo-Saxons, 65, 114, 153. 
 
 Anne, Queen, 109, 122. 
 
 Antwerp, 33, 153, 179. 
 Architecture, 40, 87, 147, 192, 
 197, 202, 209, 213. 
 
 Armada, 70. 
 
 Arminians, 100. 
 
 Arras, 248, 276. See Union of Ar¬ 
 ras. 
 
 Art, 25, 30, 75, 87, 88, 209, 270. 
 Asia, 28-34, I 54 » 264. 
 
 Astor, 268. 
 
 Avery, 268. 
 
 Avesnes, 248. 
 
 Babies, 157, 158, 168, 195. 
 
 Bailey, 268. 
 
 Balance of Power, 4. 
 
 Balch, T. W., 15. 
 
 Baptism, 52. 
 
 Baptiste, 274. 
 
 Barneveldt, 100, 135, 187. 
 
 Barr, 268. 
 
 Barry, 267. 
 
 Batchelder, 268. 
 
 Bayonne, 196. 
 
 Bean, 268. 
 
 Beard, 275. ‘ 
 
 Beaver, 169. 
 
 Bedloe’s Island, 280. 
 
 Beggars of the Sea, 3, 103, 134. 
 Belgians and Frenchmen, 248. 
 Belgic Confession, 79, 80, 93. 
 Belgium, 161. 
 
 Bells, 164. 
 
 Benezets, 274. 
 
 Benn, 268. 
 
 Berlin, 127, 211, 251. 
 
 Bethune, 276, 279. 
 
 Beverwyck, 154-56, 157, 169. 
 Beza, 68. 
 
 Bible, 47, 48, 51, 59, 69, 72, 99, 
 103, 107, 176. 
 
 Bion, Jean, 122. 
 
 Blum, Domine, 219. 
 
 Bodine, 201, 274. , 
 
 Bogart, 267. 
 
 Bogerman, 100. 
 
 Boileau, 279. 
 
 Boisot, 103, 105. 
 
 Bonheur, 267. ' 
 
 Bonny, 267. 
 
 Bon Repos, 20„ 
 
INDEX 
 
 Bontecou, 274. 
 
 Boston, 254, 275. 
 
 Boudin, 201. 
 
 Boudinot, 279. 
 
 Boughton, George H. t 177* 
 Bouton, 274. 
 
 Boyer, 274. 
 
 Bradford, 108, 139, 143, 170, 177, 
 181, 207. 
 
 Branding, 121. 
 
 Brazil, 181, 188, 203. 
 
 Brethren, The, 56-58. See Ana¬ 
 baptists. 
 
 Brewer, W., 195. 
 
 Brides, 148, 248. 
 
 Briggs, 268. 
 
 Brill, 103, 267. 
 
 Brimmer, 275. 
 
 British elements, 245. 
 
 Brooklyn, 195. 
 
 Brussels, 11, 12, 46. 
 
 Bryce, James, 226. 
 
 Buddhism, 29, 92. 
 
 Bumpus, 268. 
 
 Burgundian era, 35-41. 
 
 Burnet, Bishop, 222. 
 
 Cabot, 275. 
 
 Calvin, 62, 69, 72, 118, 132, 187. 
 Calvinism, 117, 180. 
 
 Calvinists, 5, 78, 149. 
 Cammaerts, 25. 
 
 Canada, 5, 152, 153, 186, 242, 
 248, 253. 
 
 Cannibals, 154. 
 
 Canterbury, 182. 
 
 Carillons, 69, 83. 
 
 Carleton, Sir D., 140. 
 
 Carolinas, 256, 257, 277. 
 
 Carpets, 160. 
 
 Catechising, 98, 168, 183, 186. 
 Cathedrals, 31, 88, 89. 
 
 Catholic. 61. 
 
 Catskill Mountains, 214, 261. 
 Cattle, 197. 
 
 Cessna, 274. 
 
 Chadaine, 201. 
 
 Chaille, 201. 
 
 Chambers, 268. • 
 
 Champlain, 153. 
 
 Changes in names, 266-72. 
 Charlemagne, 19, 20, 164. 
 
 Charles II, 42-50. 
 
 Charles V, 42-50. 
 
 Charles the Bold, 38, 39, 271. 
 Charleston, 254. 
 
 Charters, 46. 
 
 Chevalier, 267. 
 
 China, 135. 
 
 Chinese, 21, 22, 31, 32, 275. 
 Christianity, 74. 
 
 Christine, 116. 
 
 Christmas, 205, 206. 
 
 Church and State, 19, 20, 40, 94, 
 99, 146, 207, 220, 223, 227, 229, 
 230, 260, 279. 
 
 Church charters, 229. 
 
 Church edifices, 164, 174, 205. 
 Churches, 89-100. 
 
 Church government, 89-100. 
 Church in the Desert, 256. 
 Church in the Fort, 163, 189. 
 Church records, 204. 
 
 Church under the Cross, 92, 94, 
 
 .A 05 *. 
 
 Cities in U.S.A., 274. 
 
 City republics, 36. 
 
 Civilizations, 137, 138, 160, 164. 
 Clarks, 268. 
 
 Cleanliness, 197. 
 
 Coal forest, 23, 26, 27, 196. 
 Cocceius, 238, 239. 
 
 Cockeran, 238, 240. 
 
 Cockpit of Europe, 37, 89. 
 Coetus and Conferentia, 259. 
 Coins, 132, 171. 
 
 290 
 
INDEX 
 
 Coleman, C. A., 240. 
 
 Coligny, 131, 132, 277. 
 Colonization, 99, 138. 
 Colonization of America, 5, 131, 
 132, 134, 148, 159-61. 
 Colonizers of America, 64, 66, 
 ^ 116, 130, 159-61. 
 
 Consistory, 77, 78. 
 
 Constitution, 274. 
 
 Coppinger, 268. 
 
 Courtrai, 36. 
 
 Cradles, 157, 158, 168. 
 
 Crefeld, 210. 
 
 Cremation, 154. 
 
 Crescent. See Half Moon. 
 Crockerton, 203. 
 
 Crowley, 268. 
 
 Cruller, 171. 
 
 Cubberlys, 203. •' 
 
 Daggott, 268. 
 
 Daille, P., 204, 205. 
 
 Daisy. See Marguerite. 
 
 Dana, 279. 
 
 Danes, 75, 196. 
 d’Athenus, 79. 
 
 Dathenus, P., 79, 96-98. 
 de Besche, 112, 113. 
 de Bres, G. See Guido de Bray. 
 Decoration, interior, 159, 161. 
 Defoe, 269. 
 
 de Forest, David, 265. 
 de Forest, Jesse, 134-40, 144, 
 165, 194. 
 
 de Forest, Rachel, 194. 
 de Forest, Mrs. R. W., 134, 265. 
 de Forests, 75, 76, 274. 
 de Geer, m-14. 
 de GraefT, 274. 
 de Groot, 22, 267. 
 d’Iberville, 254. 
 de Laet, 193. 
 de Lanceys, 274. 
 
 Delaware, no, 115, 116, 174. 
 Delfshaven, 98, 139. 
 
 Dellamont, 274. 
 
 Democracy, 78, 130. 
 
 Denmark, 118, 196. 
 
 Dennis, 268. 
 
 Departement du Nord, 9, II, 248, 
 251, 253. 
 
 Depew, 201. 
 
 Depres, 69. 
 de Rasieres, 166-182. 
 de Reus, 195, 197. 
 de Ronde, Lambertus, 258. 
 de Rosen, 128. 
 de Ruyter, 267. 
 de Veaux, 277. 
 de Witt, Simeon, 265. 
 
 Dexter, H. N., 186. 
 
 Dey, D. J., 196. 
 
 Dikes, 106. 
 
 Disosways, 201, 203, 276.' 
 Distinctive America, 3, 151. 
 Doctrines, 56, 57. 
 
 Documents, 117. 
 
 Dolbear, 275. 
 
 Domine, 158, 188, 189, 190, 239. 
 Domines, 239, 258-65. 
 
 Dordrecht, Synod of, 98-100,137. 
 Driver, 268. 
 
 Dublin, 104. 
 
 Du Bois, 202, 212, 219, 274. 
 Duche, 201. 
 du Jardin, 267. 
 
 Duke of York, 221. ' 
 
 Dumont, 267. 
 
 Dumoulins, 267. 
 
 Dunkirk, 142. 
 
 Durant, 275. 
 
 Duryea, 274. 
 
 Dutch and English languages, 
 259, 261. 
 
 Dutch and French speech, 261. 
 Dutch in America, 114, 115, 116. 
 
 291 
 
INDEX 
 
 Dutch Republic, 61, 85, 104, 108, 
 129, 135, 138, 166, 169, 199, 
 206, 229, 249, 263. 
 
 Dutch traits, 138. 
 
 Duval, 276. 
 
 Dwight, 268. 
 
 East India Company, 134. 
 Eckhof, Dr., 128, 180, 190. 
 Economics, 103, 117, 124-29, 233, 
 ^ 251, 252. 
 
 Education, 189, 259, 260, 263. 
 See Catechisms. 
 
 Elector, Frederick William, 94, 
 95, 211, 220. 
 
 Emblems, 87. 
 
 Emden, 93. 
 
 Emery, 267. 
 
 Empire State, 163, 170, 189, 221, 
 222, 245, 257, 265, 274. 
 Engages, 252. 
 
 England, 36, 52, 159, 161, 245. 
 England, Walloons in, 102. 
 English, 200. 
 
 English Conquest, 222, 235. 
 English Governors, 224. 
 
 English speech and literature, 
 259, 261. 
 
 Episcopal Churches, 104, 174, 
 229, 235. 
 
 Erasmus, 49. 
 
 Esopus, 214. 
 
 Europe, 260. 
 
 European inheritances, 161, 260. 
 Evangeline, 210. 
 
 Evolution, 157, 215. 
 
 Explorers, 203. 
 
 Farel, 62. 
 
 Farms, 192, 197. 
 
 Federalism, 104, 106, 135. 
 Feudalism, 24, 35, 40, 260. 
 Fillmore, Millard, 153. 
 
 Finances, 171. 
 
 Firearms, 145, 153, 154, 157, 
 217. 
 
 Firewater, 216, 217. 
 
 First Church in New York, 163. 
 First colonists, 147. 
 
 Five Nations. See Iroquois. 
 Flagg, Ernest, 209. 
 
 Flags, 3, 4, 5, 95, 104-07, I4D 
 142, 240. 
 
 Flanders, 74. 
 
 Flax, 33, 169. 
 
 Fleming and Walloon, 270. 
 Flemings, 8, 19, 101, 197. 
 Fletcher, Governor, 230. 
 
 Florida, 70, 83. 
 
 Flushing, 261. 
 
 Food, 160, 161. 
 
 Forbes, Jeanne A., 240. 
 
 Forests, 192. 
 
 Forney, 274. 
 
 Fort Amsterdam 144, 178. 
 
 Fort Orange, 152. 
 
 Fosdick, 277. 
 
 France, 9, 59, 60, 61-65, 90, 160, 
 203, 205, 243, 253, 255, 279. 
 Frankenthal, 212. 
 
 Frankfort, 82, 97, 236, 237, 269. 
 Franklin, B., 229. 
 
 Fredericia, 118. 
 
 Frederick William, Elector, 127, 
 128. 
 
 Free Churchmen, 132, 227, 266. 
 Freedom of religion, 245. 
 Freeman, E. A., 226. 
 
 Free Printing, 228. 
 
 Fremont, 268. 
 
 French, 10, 59, 159, 189, 203, 251. 
 French Revolution, 121, 122. 
 Friends, 55. 
 
 Frontier influence, 161. 
 
 Frontier theory, 224. 
 
 Frontiers, 112, 197, 242. 
 
 292 
 
INDEX 
 
 Galera, 122. 
 
 Galerien, 121. 
 
 Gallaird, 277. 
 
 Galleys, 109, 119-23, 204. 
 Garrigues, 274. 
 
 Genealogy, 248. 
 
 Geneva, 60. 
 
 Germans, 166, 251. 
 
 Germany, 127-29, 236, 250, 251. 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 122. 
 
 Goucher, 268. 
 
 Government, functions of, 167. 
 Government of churches, 77. 
 Great Britain, 249. 
 
 Great Privilege, The, 44. 
 
 Greater Wallonia, 253, 257. 
 Greece, 130. 
 
 Greek, 48. 
 
 Greenbush, 156. 
 
 Gregories, 277. 
 
 Gresham, Secretary, 10. 
 
 Grimm, 274. 
 
 Guido de Bray, 51, 72-84, 93. 
 Gustavus Adolphus, 110-12, 116, 
 196. 
 
 Guyon, 203. 
 
 Hainault, 67, 68, 196. 
 
 Half Moon, 134, 200. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 171. 
 Hamilton, Andrew, 228. 
 
 Hamlin, 274. 
 
 Hansen, M. G., 78, 238. 
 
 Hardy, 267. 
 
 Harlem, 180, 194, 258. 
 
 Haynes, 267. 
 
 Hedge preaching, 90, 93. 
 Heidelberg Catechism, 98. 
 
 Henry Hudson, 3, 135, 165, 200, 
 211. 
 
 Henry of Navarre, 256. 
 
 Heresy, 16, 17, 53, 55, 66, 96, 
 
 121 . 
 
 Herring, 274. 
 
 Hewett, 268. 
 
 Hiawatha, 156. 
 
 Hillegas, 270. 
 
 History, English and American, 
 225, 226, 245, 263. 
 
 Holland, 40, 158. 
 
 Holy Roman Empire, 10. 
 
 Holy Scriptures, 88. 
 
 Homes, 89, 159, 162. 
 
 Hoorn, 197. 
 
 Horses, 197. 
 
 Houses, 147, 159, 192, 197, 202. 
 Howe, 279. 
 
 Hudson, H. See Henry Hudson. 
 Hudson River, 146, 214. 
 Huguenot Park, 202. 
 
 Huguenot Refugees, 251. 
 Huguenots, 65, 66, 73, 103. 
 Huguenots in America, 70, 83, 
 119-28, 200. 
 
 Huguenots in England, 102. 
 Huguenots in France, 61-70, 279. 
 Huguenots in Germany, 166, 211, 
 212. 
 
 Huguenots in Holland, 102. 
 Huguenots in Ireland, 104. 
 Hunter, Rev. John, 250. 
 
 Hurley, 215. 
 
 Huyghens, J., 189. 
 
 Hymns, 215. 
 
 Idealism, 142. 
 
 Index of Prohibited Books, 132. 
 Indians, 215. 
 
 Indian policy, 145, 152, 167, 170, 
 186, 190. 
 
 Indian sociology, 154. 
 Individualism, 184-96. 
 
 Industry, 33, 151. 
 
 Inheritances, 279, 280. 
 
 Interiors, 160. 
 
 Intolerance, 88. 
 
 293 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ireland, 104, 207, 228, 275. 
 
 Irish, 227. 
 
 Iron industry, 113, 129. 
 
 Iroquois, 152-56. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 158, 166, 
 
 173 - 
 
 Italians, 208. See Waldenses. 
 
 Jackman, 268. 
 
 James I., 139. 
 
 Jamestown, 254. 
 
 Jamison, Mary, 154. 
 
 Jasper, 268. 
 
 Jay, 276. 
 
 John Company, 171, 172. 
 Joudans, 276. 
 
 Joyous Entry, 22. 
 
 Joyousness, 117. 
 
 Julian, 268, 276. 
 
 Junius, Franciscus, 79, 95. 
 
 Kilmer, Joyce, 264. 
 
 Kings, 48. 
 
 King’s Religion, The, 64, 119-23, 
 126, 239. 
 
 Kingston, 147. 
 
 Knights, 37. 
 
 Knox, John, 243. 
 
 Komura, Count, 129. 
 
 Korea, 31, 32. 
 
 Kragier, 219. 
 
 Krieckenbeeck, 154. 
 
 Krol, Sebastian, 173. 
 
 Labaw, 249. 
 
 Labidists, 203. 
 
 Lace, 104. 
 
 Laconte, 201. 
 
 Lafebre, or Lafevre, 201. 
 
 Lafevre, 27. 
 
 La Grande, 274. 
 
 La Grand, Peregrine, 84, 93. 
 Laidlie, Archibald, 261. 
 
 Land Tenure, 149, 152, 166, 168, 
 180-219. 
 
 Latin culture, 260. 
 
 Laurence, 279. 
 le Grand, 267. 
 
 Leisler, Jacob, 82, 119, 175, 204, 
 220, 225, 229, 234, 236-45, 254, 
 257, 262, 269. 
 
 Leland, 275. 
 
 Leyden, 103, 105, 106, 107, 139, 
 165, 239, 177, 188, 263. 
 
 Lille, 212, 248. 
 
 Lily among Thorns, 91, 92. 
 Linen, 204. 
 
 Liquor, 157. 
 
 Lispenard, 276. 
 
 Literature, 61. 
 
 Livingston, J. H., 263. 
 
 Lodge, H. C., 277. 
 
 London, 82, 98. 
 
 Longfellow, 268, 276. 
 
 Long House, 152, 153. 
 
 Long Island, 208. 
 
 Lothair, 23, 38. 
 
 Louis, Count, 105. 
 
 Louisiana, 254, 278. 
 
 Louis XIV, 108, 119-23, 166, 203, 
 211, 243, 247, 248, 253. 
 
 Lovell, 268. 
 
 Loyalties, 103, 260. 
 
 Loyola, 62. 
 
 Luther, 94. 
 
 Lutherans, 174. 
 
 Maas River, 147. 
 
 Maastricht, 112. 
 
 Mabie, 274. 
 
 Magdeburg, 86. 
 
 Magna Charta, 230. 
 
 Maintenon, Madame de, 202, 
 253 . 
 
 Makers of America, 146. 
 Manhattan, 119, 144, 147, 155, 
 
INDEX 
 
 I67, 170, l80, 188, 192, 198, 
 200, 205, 208, 214, 224, 254. 
 Manhattan archipelago, 8, 146, 
 148. 
 
 Mannheim, 210-13. 
 
 Marguerite daisy, 40, 41. 
 
 Marion, 279. 
 
 Markoe, 274. 
 
 Marot, 67. 
 
 Marot’s Psalms, 67, 83, 98, 219. 
 Marriage, 148, 180, 206. 
 Marriage by proxy, 42. 
 Martielles, Jean, 122. 
 
 Martine, 274. 
 
 Martyrs, 14. 
 
 Mary of Burgundy, 39. 
 Maximilian I, 42-44. 
 
 Mayflower, 1, 137, 165, 166. 
 McKinley, President, 136. 
 Melting pot, 114. 
 
 Memorials, 257, 266. 
 
 Menno Simons, 52. 
 
 Mennonites, 52. 
 
 Mersereau, 201. 
 
 Methodists, 55, 188. 
 
 Michaelius, Domine, 188. 
 Middelburg, 179. 
 
 Middle Ages, 28, 34, 87. 
 
 Middle States, 3, 108, 135, 202, 
 233, 237, 245, 263. 
 
 Miles, 268. 
 
 Milton, 206, 228, 277. 
 Ministeriality, 187. 
 
 Ministers, 143, 262, 263. 
 
 Minuit, Pierre, or Peter, 94, 145, 
 150, 159, 163-65, 180, 189. 
 Mixture of races, 269. 
 
 Modet, Henry, 79, 87. 
 
 Mohawks, 154, 155, 239. 
 Mohawk Valley, 171, 197. 
 Mohicans, 154, 156. 
 
 Monopolies, 214. 
 
 Morrell, 274. 
 
 Mother land, 245, 260. 
 
 Mott, 268. 
 
 Mullins, Priscilla, 275. 
 
 Names, no, 127, 201, 216, 262, 
 266, 269. 
 
 Names in transformation, 266, 
 272. 
 
 Names of churches, 79. 
 
 Nantes, 211, 213, 256. 
 Nationalities, 17, 23, 263. 
 
 Neale, 268. 
 
 Negroes, 218, 258. 
 
 Nellius, Carolus, 99. 
 
 New Amsterdam, 144. 
 
 New Avesnes, 144, 178. 
 
 New Brunswick, 229, 263. 
 
 New England, 114, 115, 144, 256, 
 276. 
 
 New Jersey, 233. 
 
 New Netherland, 4, 65, 129, 148, 
 149, 158, 165, 175, 190, 222, 
 258. 
 
 New Netherland (ship), 115, 141, 
 146, 149, 152, 161, 200. 
 
 New Netherlands (non-existent), 
 
 158- 
 
 New Paltz, 119, 147, 212-21, 254, 
 255, 261. 
 
 New Rochelle, 69, 119, 240, 245, 
 255 - 
 
 New Rupella, 255. 
 
 New York City, 152, 168, 276. 
 
 See Manhattan. 
 
 New York Harbor, 280. 
 
 New York State. See Empire 
 State. 
 
 Norman, C. C., 196. 
 
 Normandy, 251. 
 
 Normans, 172, 196. 
 
 Norman’s Kill, 156. 
 
 Norseman, 95, 119. 
 
 Norwich, 102. 
 
 295 
 
INDEX 
 
 Nova Belgica (Terra), 3, 10, 134, 
 149, 158, 165, 188, 211, 245. 
 
 Oars, 120, 122, 248. 
 
 Old Testament, 65. 
 
 Orthodoxy, 16. 
 
 Osier, 268. 
 
 Ostrander, Henry, 261. 
 Ostrander, Stephen, 261. 
 Oxenstierna, 116, 174. 
 
 Oxford, Mass, 257, 277. 
 
 Palatinate, 166, 210-221. 
 Parliament, 223, 225, 227, 244. 
 Patriotism, 264. 
 
 Patroons, 172. 
 
 Patton, 268. 
 
 Payne, 267. 
 
 Peace Covenant, 152, 153, 167. 
 Pearse, 268. 
 
 Peiret, 205. 
 
 Pelletier, 267. 
 
 Penn, William, 145,153,159,167, 
 174, 210, 218. 
 
 Pennies, 103, 257. 
 
 People, The, 222, 234. 
 
 Perkins, 268. 
 
 Perrine, 13, 203. 
 
 Petrograd, 128. 
 
 Pettee, 268. 
 
 Pews, 177. 
 
 Philadelphia, 115, 116, 132, 210, 
 2 54 * 
 
 Philip II, 15, 50, 59, 70. 
 Phonetics, 127, 163, 277. 
 
 Pickens, 268. 
 
 Pilgrim and Puritan, 247, 250. 
 Pilgrim Fathers, 10, 11, 98, 106, 
 108, 143,163, 176, 177,201,250. 
 Pilgrims, 6, 139, 164, 175, 237, 
 266. 
 
 Pillow, 268. 
 
 Pinchot, James W., 280. 
 
 Pintards, 201. 
 
 Pippins, 161. 
 
 Pirates, 126, 142. 
 
 Plancius, P., 134. 
 
 Plantation, 192, 195. 
 
 Plattekil, 261. 
 
 Plummer, 268. 
 
 Plymouth, 114, 147, 169, 177, 
 192, 275. 
 
 Poole, Reginald, 128. 
 
 Portsmouth treaty, 128. 
 Portuguese, 154, 155. 
 
 Powell, 268. 
 
 Precentor, 187. 
 
 Presbyterians, 206. 
 
 Printing, 49, 50, 69, 228. 
 Privates, 231. 
 
 Progress, 53, 54, 259. 
 
 Protestant, 59, 126, 271. 
 Provinces of Belgium, 11. 
 Prussia, 126, 251. 
 
 Psalms, 67, 69, 219. 
 
 Psychology, 218, 220. 
 
 Puritans, 73, 92, 131, 205. 
 
 Quakers, 188. See Friends. 
 
 Queen Wilhelmina, 100. 
 
 Quentin Durward, 39. 
 
 Quincy, 268. 
 
 Raad van Stat6, 45. 
 
 Rabelais, 62. 
 
 Races in contact, 28, 261. 
 
 Ramey, 268. 
 
 Ransom, 219. 
 
 Rapalje, J. J., 195. 
 
 Rapalje, Sara, 195. 
 
 Raritan River, 265. 
 
 Rasieres, J. de. See de Rasteres. 
 Redemptioners, 251, 252. 
 
 Red Hook, 258. 
 
 Reformation, 48-50, 53, 59-71, 
 146, 260. 
 
 296 
 
INDEX 
 
 Reformed Church in America, 78, 
 90-100, 258-65. 
 
 Reformed faith, 8. 
 
 Reformers, 77, 81. 
 
 Refugees, 164, 248, 254, 256. 
 Religion, 245, 247, 248. 
 
 Religion in the home, 183-86. 
 Remonstrants, 99. 
 
 Remy, 274. 
 
 Renaissance, 246. 
 
 Republic, Dutch, 6, 102, 150. 
 Revell, 268. 
 
 Revere, Paul, 275. 
 
 Revocation of Edict of Nantes, 
 108, 213, 256. 
 
 Revolution, American, 144, 233, 
 235, 258. 
 
 Reynolds, 279. 
 
 Rhine, 164, 210, 213, 249. 
 
 Ritner, 274. 
 
 Ritual, 180, 187. 
 
 Robinson, 141, 173, 257. 
 Rochelle, La, 255. 
 
 Roman Empire, 18. 
 
 Romans, 26, 74. 
 
 Rome, 21. 
 
 Rondout, 214. 
 
 Rose, 268. 
 
 Rowland, 268. 
 
 Russia, 101, 128. 
 
 Rutgers College, 229, 259, 263, 
 265. 
 
 Ryswyck, 108, 109. 
 
 Sacraments, 187. 
 
 Santa Claas, 158. 
 
 Saugerties, 258. 
 
 Scandinavians, 174, 196. 
 Schaeffer, J. G. de Hoop, 52, 53, 
 139 . 
 
 Schaghticoke, 258. 
 
 Schenectady, 119, 155, 169, 191, 
 201,202,220,229, 242, 253, 275. 
 
 Schiller, 280. 
 
 Schools, 143, 166, 190-203. 
 
 Scott, Walter, 39, 158. 
 
 Scrooby, 143. 
 
 Seals, 10, 149, 166, 169, 170. 
 Sectionalism, 253. 
 
 Sects, 61. 
 
 Self-government, 89. 
 
 Selyns, Domine, 204. 
 
 Seneca Indians, 261. 
 
 Sequines, 203. 
 
 Settlements, 119. 
 
 Seventeen provinces, 4, 8, 37. 
 Seymour, 268. 
 
 Shinnecocks, 208. 
 
 Shipbuilding, 172. 
 
 Ships (Dutch), 199, 203,206, 207, 
 
 213. 
 
 Ships’ names, 179. 
 
 Slavery, 119-23, 218, 219. 
 
 Slave trade, 109, 121. 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, 226. 
 
 Socialism, 270. 
 
 Social Life, 235. 
 
 Society of Colonial Wars, 116. 
 Song, 143.. 
 
 South Africa, 126, 257. 
 
 South America, 2, 126. 
 
 Spain, and Spaniards, 134-38, 
 148, 166, 171. 
 
 Speedwell, 1. 
 
 Spelling, 267, 268. 
 
 Spicer, 268. 
 
 Sports, 167. 
 
 St. Christopher (Island), 203, 
 252, 257. 
 
 St. Goliard, 73. 
 
 St. Kitts. See St. Christopher. 
 Statecraft, 109. 
 
 Staten Island, 119, 199, 209, 
 278. 
 
 States-General, 84, 95. 
 
 Stone Age, 153, 156. 
 
 297 
 
INDEX 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon, 5. 
 
 Street names, 274. 
 
 Stripes, 106, 107, 120. 
 
 Stuart Kings, 222, 234. 
 Stuyvesant, 4, 208, 218. 
 
 Sugar, 181. 
 
 Symonds, 267. 
 
 Sweden, 110-18, 172, 196. 
 
 Swedes in Delaware, 110,115,116. 
 Swedish genius, no. 
 
 Swiss Republic, 68. 
 
 Switzerland, 38, 68, 118. 
 Symbols, 87, 92, 183, 186. 
 
 Synod of Dort (Dordrecht), 148, 
 185, 189. 
 
 Synods, 93 * 95 , 98-100, 148, 239. 
 
 Tablets, 116, 163. 
 
 Tarry town, 166. 
 
 Tassemacher, P., 239. 
 Tawasentha, 156. 
 
 Taxation, 43, 225. 
 
 Tercentenary of New York, 132. 
 Terry, 268. 
 
 Theology, 56, 57, 60, 61, 132, 135, 
 205, 260, 263. 
 
 Thirty Years War, 86, 166, 174. 
 Thoreau, 203, 276. 
 
 Tilly, 77, 86 . 
 
 Torrey, 268. 
 
 Treaties, 9, 247, 253. 
 
 Trego, 274. 
 
 Treslong, 103. 
 
 Trico, Catalina, 153. 
 
 Truax, 274. 
 
 Truce, Twelve Years, 137, 149. 
 True Born Englishman, 269. 
 Truth, 54. 
 
 Turks, 32, 105, 121, 186, 240. 
 
 Tyl Uhlenspiegel, 62. 
 
 Union College, 229. 
 
 Union of Arras, 5, 84, 85. 
 
 Union of the American Colonies, 
 4, 225, 242. 
 
 Union of Utrecht, 85. 
 
 Unity, 138, 242. 
 
 Unknown Soldier, The, 176. 
 Usselinx, 50, 134, 141. 
 
 Utrecht, 109, 247, 263. 
 
 Valenciennes, 67, 83, 248, 276. 
 Van Curler, Arendt, 153, 213,220. 
 Van den Berg, 267. 
 
 Van der Meulen, 267. 
 
 Van Lennep, 95. 
 
 Van Rensselaer, 193, 235. 
 
 Van Soest, R. H., 193. 
 
 Van Tassel, 66. 
 
 Van Twilier, Wouter, 173, 194. 
 Van Winkle, E., 192. 
 
 Vassar, 41, 279. 
 
 Verdun Compact, 22, 23. 
 
 Vere, Sir Horace, 166. 
 
 Vermilye, A. G., 245, 262. 
 Vermilye, D., 262. 
 
 Vermilye, E. E., 262. 
 
 Vernon, 268. 
 
 Versteeg, D., 192. 
 
 Vesalius, 45. 
 
 Vincent, 268. 
 
 Vingboom’s Map, 192-96. 
 Violets, 278. 
 
 Virginia, 140, 256, 277. 
 
 Voetius, 238. 
 
 Volkerson, D., 196. 
 
 Voltaire, 153. 
 
 Votes, 89. 
 
 Wal (root), 11, 12, 14. 
 
 Waldenses, 77, 206, 207. 
 
 Walkill, 214. 
 
 Waller, hi, 268. 
 
 Wallonia, Greater, 252-57. 
 Walloon and Huguenot, 247. 
 Walloon archives, 106. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Walloon churches, 186-190. 
 
 Walloon Family in America, A, 
 134 - 
 
 Walloon genius, 25. 
 
 Walloon literature, 143. See Bel- 
 gic Confession. 
 
 Walloon provinces, 4, 5, 11, 85- 
 86, 276. 
 
 Walloon traits and features, 114, 
 115, 117, 118, 270. 
 
 Walloons, 8-16, 26, 27, 67, 74, 78, 
 85, 95, 126, 127. 
 
 Walloons in England, 126, 127. 
 
 Walloons in France, 251. 
 
 Walloons in Germany, 127, 128, 
 236, 237. 
 
 Walloons in Holland, 103, 107, 
 108, 189. 
 
 Walloons in Ireland, 104, 127. 
 
 Walloons in lands of exile, 250. 
 
 Walloons in New Netherland, 68, 
 75, 98, 106, 134, 148, 183-91, 
 276. 
 
 Walloons in Scotland, 127. 
 
 Walloons in Sweden, 110-18, 196. 
 
 Walloons in Wales, 127. 
 
 Wampum, 178. 
 
 War, 166. 
 
 Warfare of religion and science, 
 
 247 ; 
 
 Washington, George, 65. 
 
 Wecaco, 174. 
 
 Weepers’ Tower, 166. 
 
 Welsh, 210, 226. 
 
 Wendell, 275. 
 
 Wesel, 94, 95, 164, 186, 189. 
 West India Company, 4, 9, 50, 
 134-43, 165, 172, 173, 197, 203. 
 West Indies, 218, 252, 256. 
 Whittier, 210, 276. 
 
 Wilhelmina (Queen), 4, 129. 
 William the Silent, 4, 50, 57, 96, 
 149, 207, 221. 
 
 William III, 104. 
 
 Williams, Roger, 145, 159, 218. 
 Willibrod, 164. 
 
 Wilmington, 174. 
 
 Wiltwick, 213, 214. 
 
 Windmills, 195. 
 
 Wolves, 278. 
 
 Women, 271. 
 
 Women, Education of, 174. 
 World War, 279. 
 
 Yacht, 9. 
 
 Yale College, 263., 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 *